Cantousent

Great, Enoch is stepping into the middle of a vendetta. Nice ta know ya, man! lol I keed! I keed! The scorpitron fight is 12 shades of ugly. That's one of the two fights I have genuinely thought were ol' skool hard. Those little scorpling bastards pack quite a punch also. This is the fight that made me think that I should have two medics as well as a third surgeon. Still, it's also the fight that made me soooo glad that I got that one 3 shot energy weapon with the ridiculous armor threshold. That thing chews the hell out of anyone with halfway decent armor. I swear, it's overpowered. Generally, so far, I think those God's Militia morons are pretty damned tough, but I'm actually going to destroy them regardless of what my other options are. They're one of three factions I have on my 'kill at all costs' list.

I want a cat. If I don't get my damned cat, I'm going to picket outside the Obsidian offices in a cat suit. In fact, I'll dress up as Cat Woman and wear a sandwich board sign with mice stapled to it.

One of the things I like about this game is that it's fast paced and fun. It's campy, like Fallout and especially Fallout 2. I can only think of maybe two or three battles that required a reload. That's not because of my brilliance as a 'commander.' That's because the game is pretty forgiving. I think it's fairly hard to completely gimp your party on the combat side unless you're a complete noob or you intentionally do so to make the game harder and earn some bragging rights. It's not a bragging rights kind of game as I've seen it and, unless Supreme Jerk is considerably harder than Ranger, it probably won't be. Please don't get me wrong. Half the fun of these games is debating the builds. I read through the posts to get a good idea of how to approach my build for the next game and I shameless plundered the advice that was available when I build the party I'm playing now. It's a great debate, but it's also good to remember that at some point the increases in efficiency will be marginal, and that's especially true for XP gains. Frankly, I think the way XP works in the game fits the campy nature of it, but it's quite schizophrenic. Yeah yeah "That's ur opinion!1!!" I only have my opinion to give. Please take for granted that I won't give someone else's opinion without citing him. I think of the per use XP on skills as largely trivial candy doled out to give people a happy feeling rather than making any truly significant difference in the game. I suppose I could dredge up screen shots later if I had to do so, but I have a single high charisma character with a six leadership (because of a trinket) and two dialogue skills. I have one super high intellect skills monkey with Computers, locks, safecracking, and surgeon. My sniper has explosives and repair. My heavy weapons guy is almost another skill monkey with alarms, surgeon, medic, and toaster. I think many of you would think of that party as a foolish build, and yet combat has not been difficult. Sure, I had a brief brush with death early that encouraged me to have two (and now three) surgeons, but otherwise it's been pretty smooth sailing. With those skills, there is a single level difference between my characters. Two are 30. Two are 29. My NPCs are 27, 28, and 29. ...And they still perform in combat and I have had two of them since very early in the game. Per use skill XP is a psychological reward that most has a minor and sometimes negligible impact. To allude to something Gromnir said earlier, why is it that you get per use skill XP for non combat skills but combat XP is doled out evenly regardless of who performs better? Don't give me mental gymnastics or quasi politico double speak! The game could give XP for successfully hitting an opponent with a weapon. There is no theoretical reason not to do so, but it would be a really tough act to balance it from a game design perspective. Of course, you could get XP for the failed attempt because it does teach you something in real life. However, that's true for non-combat skills, which yield no XP for failing. Combat XP is a tremendous amount in the aggregate. Skill use XP barely rises above trivial in most cases. My point isn't to start an argument about the WL2 XP system here. I'm enjoying the game. I'm just saying that my problem with the skills really isn't the XP thing, even though I find it silly. Something that I think is a more serious issue from a design standpoint is the fact that I don't really see how most of the attributes impact skills. Does strength impact brute force in a meaningful way? Does Charisma impact hard ass, smart ass, or kiss ass? Also, I don't like the fact that dialogue is broken into three categories. I don't know about other folks, but I do everything I can to make sure that I have all the dialogue options possible in a game. ...But none of this will prevent me from playing again. Once I finish the first run, of course.

I laughed when I read about Indira Lightfoot. lol However, I think I'm at a point right now where I should wait until tomorrow before I try to make a coherent argument. However, I *will* say that the fine points are a little lost. The point is that the game actually does succeed in the main goal of any game. which is to provide fun for the player. I'm going to play on Jerk next, with micro-planned characters, I think it will be a hoot, especially if I go with a theme, such as the Greek pantheon or maybe American founding fathers or some such.

Yeah, Hiro, I'm thinking I really need another medic. I had two surgeons for the first half of the game and I've upped it to three with some extra points to burn on high int characters. Having someone who can *keep* people on their feet is a good idea. I'm thinking of doing one of those thematic runs also. Maybe Greek gods? I dunno, but I have time to think. My melee character packs a huge punch, KP. I mean, he actually does real damage to people. I think my highest single damage output is from energy weapons against a heavily armored opponent, but my melee guy puts the smack down on the baddies too. EDIT: Sorry, I meant my brawler. I've seen him punch for quite high damage amounts.

Damned quick response glitches! Anyhow, anyone know of a way to change my party order. I had to let a member go briefly and when I recruited her again, she was last, but I like my party order to stay the same. It doesn't matter much technically, but it drives me nuts. I'm not really involved in the contest between Hiro and Grom, but I will point out that things like "+5% experience gain" tend not to be as valuable in any game as they appear. They need to be taken early to get much benefit at all. They are almost always red herrings. Any game that makes it so that one stat, perk, skill, or ability gives a truly substantial advantage in levels is simply bad. Anything where one character is more than one or two levels above his compatriots is unbalanced. Anything that only gives one or two levels difference at any particular time is simply less valuable than something that makes the character better at his primary function. I think it would be different if charisma had some impact on the speech skills, but it doesn't seem to do anything in that regard. I'm not really complaining here. Wasteland 2 is one of the best games I've played in a while for fun factor, even though many of the design decisions are confounding. Anyhow, the battle at

Does anyone know how a noob like me can change the marching order? Also, I intentionally spread out my skills as best I could in order to keep people the level disparity at a minimum. I think something far worse than the level disparity, however, is the fact that I don't want to take on new NPCs at this point. I might do it anyway for RP reasons, but the game rewards carefully managing your skills. That means that skills increasingly become like a jigsaw puzzle. You might want to take that poor luckless bastard of a priest as a follower in the late game, but you can't spare the extra bullets he'll consume and you'll have to lose one of your specialists. It's not you can't do it, it's that it doesn't make sense from a, dare I say, strategic point of view? So, I'll plan my next run around picking up the priest next game. Hell, if he weren't entirely worthless otherwise, I would have fostered Ralphy. At least he's low enough level when you get him that you can pump a point into intel and basically get a tabula rasa. I wish his attributes were better, but they're not so terrible you can't work with them. Sadly, I needed a professional goon who could kick down a door for me right away. Next run, I will shamelessly look up the NPC's and their starting skills and plan my exact NPC route in order to take specific people. Since I don't think you can save on Supreme Jerk, that means I might actually stick with Ralphy rather than save/reload to toaster repair success. If I give the kid a chance, he might actually shine. Attributes are kind of messy. They don't seem to do squat for non combat skills, but are supremely important in combat. That means that attributes that don't do something directly for combat are devalued. The exception is intel simply because it can yield the player more skills altogether, which means weapon skills also. Of course, when your super skilled braniac goes last every combat round because he's blind, stiff, slow, and ugly, then the combat skill points have a lot of extra lifting to do. That's my take, and I'm damned if I'm playtesting this puppy. I hate not having dialogue options, but I also think it's too much to split dialogue skills into three separate sinks. Just my thoughts. Overall, I like the game quite a bit, but it exemplifies why I believe that per-use XP is bad. It's either insufficient to be meaningful or it's significant and therefore has real impact on how you approach each incident. Anyhow, I don't want to start the XP bloodwars in this thread, but that's my honest assessment of the game so far. I don't know how far I have till I'm done, but I've been plugging away at it and I can't be *that* far.

It seems pretty clear to me that most skills are simply important in and of themselves. There's a splash screen hint that says you should select skills that go with attributes, but I don't think most of them matter. In fact, in the PoE Wasteland 2 thread, folks were debating the disconnect between brute force as a skill and actually brute strength in a character. I mean, it hasn't stopped me from enjoying the game, but it's a bit weird. I personally don't like individual XP gains, but I'm not going to let it bug me. It just means that your skill monkeys will tend to get a bump in XP, but usually not enough to make a huge difference. I think my party is pretty much within one or two levels of each other. I'm absolutely certain someone has already mentioned this, but there's something truly wrong with having no skill or attribute associated with grenades and rocket launchers. Once again, won't ruin what has been a great game, but it is an insane design. I have all my grenades on one person for RP reasons, but I think depending on the player to RP through incompetent/hasty design is a real short-coming. ...But the grenade issue is the only one that I find truly weird. On the other hand, the toaster repair thing is actually a little vexing. Anyhow, before I passed out last night, I found the

I'm sorry, guys, haven't been on the forum much, so I beg pardon if I'm covering old ground. I am undoubtedly covering stuff folks have already talked to death. Anyhow, I took a break after making it to Sunny . I've been running around there for a bit and I walking into something called the Scorpetron or some such. That is one mother ****ing monster, I assure you! I admit, with no shame, I was surprised and got the chop the first time 'round. The second fight, I put 'er down, but I had to resort to the ol' healbot route by having my medic just keep front liners on their feet. I think of that as an exploit. Just think, I opted not to take on this train yard thing or some such in around the prison area because I didn't want to fight three slicer dicers at one time. As ol' Gromie would say, "Ha! Good fun!" As far as earlier stuff, I have had great fun with the game. I especially thought it was funny that one of my guys was too close to a who detonated and I had to replace all of his clothing. lol Also, I don't know what the end cutscene will be, but I was disappointed that so many of my discretionary poitons were later questioned by my superiors. [spoilers]no matter what they said, the mad monks had to go. They were worse than the DBM. They were worse than everybody with the exception of folks who literally would have wiped out humanity altogether. Also, I think the Red Skoprions needed to go. I didn't even start that fight, so whatever the 'peaceful solution' Gonzo thought I should find, I did what I had to do. Anyhow, great game. I'm a little slow in following the discussion on this page that I see, but I have to admit that some of the skills seem to be weird, but I'm still having fun, so all's good. The only real bitch I have, even with some oddities, is the fact that I could take Ralphy for toaster repair. ...But I have some points in toaster repair already. It's probably cheating to 'save scum' and save before toasters, but since I know that I can take the time to get Ralphy if I want, I just save. It's not a challenge to hoof it back to an NPC. It's merely a longer way to get around to something that I can get simply by saving. I think that's a design flaw personally, but I don't care as long as I have fun. I've done about five areas in and I'm amused that there is one place I don't recognize. EDIT: Oh, and I took the Italian mutant chic. However, I took virtually everyone because of what they could offer skillwise. I'm only playing on Ranger level now, so it might change in Jerk level, but I'm happy enough with her. There are only a few skills my team doesn't already cover. Of course, I don't care about barter in the first place, so that's not a big deal. I will say, later on, energy weapons truly shine in some key battles.

I didn't vote yet because I'm going to think about what you said. I will say that I believe the primary reason for the combat rounds of the IE games was the turn based aspect of 2nd edition. I think that caused problems in and of itself, but they managed to hash out the issues pretty well. Still, even the combat rounds in the IE games didn't completely reflect the way rounds worked in 2nd edition, if I remember it right. Off hand, I would say they need to stick with their new system, but I'll probably leave the voting to people who spend more time with the beta.

I sometimes leave raiders alone, but I virtually always hunt down and kill off slavers completely. I mean, I might let the underlings go, but the people in charge I will find and I will end. Sometimes, if I take a real disliking to someone I view as truly evil, I'll kill 'em anyway. Generally, even if I really don't like someone in a game, I don't go out of my way to fight him. I didn't want to kill off the monks, but for roleplaying purposes, I decided to remove the order. That would be true regardless of everything else. Whether or not the alternative was entirely bad. There was the 'twist,' but I didn't know that at the time and the other 'twist' convinced me that, as well intentioned as they were, it had to be the way it ended. Wasteland does a good job of making a harsh world pretty campy and funny. It's grittyesque in a sort of grin and chuckle sort of way that I enjoy. I to agree, my Hiroic friend. A lot of the anti-per kill XP crowd does seem to have a bit o' the bloodthirst. However, I think the point of not having kill XP is that your motives are pure. You just want to smite the hell out of everything in sight to show off your badassedness. Hell, leave the gear on the rotting bodies because you. don't. even. care. about. that. Not my particular play style, but you have to admit there's something almost admirable to the commitment. :Cant's bemused grin icon:

Objective only XP is not so important for now, even though I haven't seen a single argument against it that makes sense. A band of adventurers goes out into the field, armed to the teeth. Killed hundreds of minor enemies in trivial encounters. ----- tons of xp in the aggregate. Going through multiple steps to secure a rare and powerful item for a merchant. ------ less XP in the aggregate. Of course, some folks might decide to respond to the post rather than the point at hand. You can restructure any argument in order to trivialize it, but at the very least, you should properly represent it. I don't think I have once misrepresented an argument in order to refute it. in per kill XP, you get a whole bunch of incidents where you receive relatively small XP that adds up to a lot, then you also get XP for talking to the fat guy. Now, I don't think that there are many folks calling for per kill XP who say we shouldn't get quest XP also. That's going by comments in this thread as well as the poll numbers themselves. Maybe it's different overall, but we're in a discussion here and in this discussion, I don't see an example of a substantial group calling for the removal of quest XP. Only about half more or less for inclusion of per kill XP. In objective XP, in this case culminating in dialogue with the quest giver on three occasions(?), the characters not only overcome, kill, confuse, or make peace with tons of monsters, they might also get past or through locked doors, solve riddles, dispatch, spring, or otherwise bypass traps, and other 'epic' things. The culmination of these experiences is in stages, one of which is to talk to the fat guy three times. As for you, Cap'n, I don't actually mind trash mobs as long as the combat is fun. I tend not to go out of my way to kill things anyway, but sometimes I do want to kill off monsters or npcs. A good example is Wasteland 2. It wouldn't matter which system it used, I would still go after the many raider bands in Canyon of the Titan. I feel kind of bad killing off the Monks, but they are either retarded or insane in the first place, and I knew that straight away. I thought they had it all wrong from get-go City. In the Wasteland universe, if the fear of MAD worked, there wouldn't have been a game in the first place. Out in the wilderness, I have virtually *always* run from battles with animals and raiders, even though I could pick up XP gear, especially in areas where the raiders are so pathetic I dispatch them with melee or brawling. Nevertheless, I don't want to take the time. Trash monsters are only bad when they're completely trashy. So, in my mind, I think of them as minor enounters random or not. I don't want to slog though completely forgettable encounters, which is what I think of 'trash encounters.' ...But that's a whole different discussion. As far as I'm concerned, the XP gorilla beats down a lot of other discussions. I think it's actually interesting to debate entirely set encounters vs. random/minor/semi-random etc. What is a trash mob? I know there were truly minor encounters in all of the IE games.

Depending on a variety of factors, in Darklands you could heal from a wound faster in real life than you could playing the damned game! I kid! I kid! ...But it was time consuming. Of course, there were ways to increase your healing, but it was a lot more time consuming than the current system. I agree with your logical points, Hydra. I just don't know that they're really pressing because the intuitive gap isn't all that striking. On the other hand, I don't really have strong feelings about it, so it wouldn't bug me if they changed the name. I would change MIGHT to PROWESS or something first because that one actually *does* bug me.

I actually don't mind attrition. It works well in table top RPGs. However, I have to hand it to you, my gifted friend, I never really though about it in a CRPG perspective. Sometimes, in the table top setting, some of the bad guys have effects from other things that have happened, such as fights or other long term status effects. Having some of that going on in the game world makes it feel more 'lived in.' They should do that with CRPGs more. I mean, bad guys have a life outside of trying to kill us. Sometimes they try to kill each other or somebody else tries to kill them. Have attrition cut both ways from time to time. Some games do it, but I've thought of it as part of the set encounter instead of more or philosophical idea behind a dynamic world in a CRPG. It's natural in pen and paper, so why not on the computer?

I wonder if they *could* use the IE mechanics, since it's licensed, although I seem to recall the Cap'n saying that the old 2nd edition rules or some equivalent are a kind of open license now or something like that. They'd get no end of grief if they simply put together a game with the carbon copy ruleset. I think the idea of stamina and health sounds like fun, and it didn't cause me any grief when I played it in Darklands years ago. It's just a learning curve thing. The complexity won't be an issue for most folks. Making sure that it doesn't become a micromanaging tedium issue will be a bigger problem, but it's already well ahead of Darklands in that regard. I loved Darklands and have been singing its praises since before the IE games were even made, but there was a lot of tedious stuff in there, including irritable alchemists with whom you needed to speak and who would randomly grow angry with you, kick you out of their shops, and then refuse to speak to you for days. Please, dear Lord, don't put anything like *that* in PoE! EDIT: And the next time someone pulls out the ol' "You weren't a hardcore IE game fan!" I'm going to respond with one word: alignment! :shudders:

Yeah, my prodigious friend, the 'next generation' has been spelling the downfall of humanity since Plato's time. If every generation were a mere shadow of the previous one, we wouldn't even exist as a species today. Don't get me wrong, some generations are better than others, but I'll play my Wasteland 2 in the shadow of the Fallout franchise and be glad for the shade!

I actually chuckled at this. I still sometimes follow the attributes discussions, but I don't take the time to post in them. I feel exactly the same way about MIGHT as you do. The idea doesn't bother me, the name does. ...But it's like a lot of English words, it has layers of meaning and so it technically can mean something more than physical might. I'll be there with you during those 100 hours letting it grow on me, brother! Welcome to the forum.

I've been a member of this forum for years. I think a decade at this post. I still sometimes have a hard time finding out if something has been asked or answered already. You do searches and look around but you're probably going to double post at some point. As for pissing people off, don't let it bother you. The guy who treats you like you're the embodiment of Satan himself regarding the terrible DnD alignment system today will be on your side in the Star Wars light vs. dark side discussion tomorrow.

They have a very incorrect notion that poe isn't going to be about killing stuff. Thoughts of Deus Ex and Vampire Bloodlines delude them. See they don't want poe to be inspired by the IE games; they want it to be inspired by games that were inspired by the IE games. Don't be a doofus. Geez. Now, pretend that I actually responded at length to this nonsense. ...Unless you're just being snarky, in which case, bite me! :Cant's huge grin icon:

...And folks should get XP no matter how they handle those 'hand picked' encounters. Some might require combat. Some might require diplomacy. Some might be avoidable and yet accomplish the same thing. That's the definition of objective XP as far as I'm concerned. The obstacles matter more than the methods. I just don't want them to get bogged down with the whole "you have to have multiple ways of accomplishing the same goal." Sometimes, the only way to save the cheerleader is to kill the bad guy. I have no problem with that. I don't know how feasible it is to do away with random encounters with the current design. Personally, I think we're going to have a lot of 'random' encounters and wandering fillermonsters, placeholderbeasts, and fodderfiends. I'm not even sure that's bad as long as we don't end up slogging through such memorable encounters as "English Longswordsman" who a tough, relentless, and boring as hell. Two things about the bestiary: once you've filled out the bestiary, you have no more incentive to hunt lions. It is a specific amount of experience for killing a limited population within the entire pool. In the aggregate, it is not nearly as significant as racking up XP for each individual kill. Second, I keep hoping they put in other ways to fill the beastiary, from killing to observing, to talking, to who knows what. Now, when arguing with any of these statements, please at least nod that I'm not a huge fan of the beastiary from a design point of view. If it means that they confine the XP to a knowable quantity for a specific and defined objective, it's a compromise that suits me fine. As much as folks use it as a back door argument for per kill XP, it is not the same. EDIT: Added a few words to clarify.

Hey, Wal-mart shoppers in Alabama are not only people, but even more, they're consumers. ...But I don't take offense. I sometimes indulge in other tastes before I post and I deserve whatever comes my way as a result. :Cant's sheepish grin: On *my* more serious note: I agree in this. People are used to something and therefore will agitate for it. It doesn't matter if it's a better way. There are people who never even gave the idea of not having per kill XP any chance at all. They hated the idea sight unseen and railed against it from the very start. There was no consideration or contemplation on the part of many of the people who desire per kill XP. That's not reading minds. That's counting posts and noting the dates on them. Unlike trap XP, which is irritating but at least not truly significant, per kill XP will possibly be the greatest potential XP pool in the aggregate. It will certainly be quite substantial. I almost hope, in a somewhat spiteful way, that they include trap XP and leave out per kill XP. Aside: I prefer to refer to per kill XP as incidental, but I guess it's kind of down to whole nomenclature thing again. :invokes the spirit of Gromnir: In reality, I no longer have the time or stamina to lob grenades at folks in an online forum. It is entirely an empty threat in the first place. I mean, I was more or less trying to jest, but I might have been willing to carry on with it a bit longer in the past, but now I'll just accept whatever comes. For one thing, I don't have a choice. However, for me to feel good about the outcome only requires one thing: no per kill XP. I have always *always* expected that combat should result in XP gains. I just think that killing any random beast shouldn't yield an XP reward. It maybe shouldn't always yield a gameplay (or story) reward at all. If you want to hunt down every random creature on a map, you should do it because it warms the depths of your cold murderous heart. However, killing significant creatures should be an objective in and of itself, and I have never minded the idea of getting XP for doing so. I think they really screwed up by making it appear that 'objective only' was 'quest only.' Objective XP should encompass a whole slew of things that wouldn't necessarily fall under the heading of quests. At any rate, we don't have to agree with everyone on these forums. We don't even have to like each other. I mean, I'd still probably offer a beer to any of you bastards who came to my door. Maybe even a finger or two of something better if I really like you. ...But this place exists to fight about these things and I'll keep posting to advocate my position as often as I get the chance and can arse myself to do it.

If they do, indeed, renege on their kickstarter assertions regarding XP, I certainly hope that Sawyer grows a set of hairy balls and comes into the forum to tell us personally. The assumption has been that combat XP folks are the only bomb throwers in the crowd, and I would personally like to put that to the test. While I don't tend to speak for people other than myself, I do note what other folks post and take them at their word. There are those of us who don't mind combat receiving XP. Have *never* minded combat receiving XP and have *always* expected that it should. I just don't want incidental activities to yield XP. I won't get into yet another rehash of arguments that have become more threadbare than my daddy's overstuffed armchair. There's probably a place that will accommodate a broad middle, but that will never be granting incidental kill XP for me. If that makes me fringe, then I'm going to park my ass in the fringe section and make myself at home. Really, all I want is to know how they're going to approach this so I can start stocking up on ****tails of the burning and exploding variety.

70s. I didn't even know about the 90s remake. Sounds like they recycle it every twenty years or so.

Funny moment recently. A long time ago, my sister used to love this British TV series called "The Tomorrow People." I saw it recently on Netflix and thought, "wow, that's an ooooold series." Turns out there was an American Remake a few years ago. lol ...And that's not the only series we Americans have lifted from the Limeys. Castle Wolfenstein was originally Brit until id made it distinctly 'Merican! Okay, I'm a tad diminished in capacity now, so it might not be as funny as I think atm. As an aside, I see we actually have someone in the 16-20 yo crowd. Niiice. We were starting to look like a Vampiric cabal for a while, all these ol' bastards.

Fair enough. I will point out that my position has never been dependent on the *amount* of XP. I will say this refarding kill vs mechanics XP: people are more likely to eschew kill XP on RP grounds than mechanics XP. Anyhow, maybe I will actually take a stab at clarifying my position: but not on a phone lol