[Steam vs GoG redemption ?]

Steam. GoG doesn't allow me to spam my friends' feeds with PoE content. 

 

(that's not to say that I won't buy a GoG version later during a sale maybe)

[Fanart | Custom Portraits]

These are amazing portraits, especially the Aumaua one. Thank you for sharing them. 

[What are you reading?]

The Martian, excellent book that I highly recommended to anyone. It's about an astronaut stranded(presumed dead) on Mars with 1 year of food and the next mission is in 4 years.

 

So I picked the ebook up from Amazon and started reading it this morning, at your recommendation (to anyone). I'm a little under halfway through and it's very, very good. 

[Everything feels way too fast]

But what I'm finding is that PoE less a Real Time with Pause game and more a Pause with Real Time game. I tend to spend more time paused than not in combat, as I'm perpetually issues commands, engaging special abilities, casting spells, and just trying to make sure all of my guys are making their proper contributions in combat.

 

That might improve with patches. I had a few lucky battles where I was able to attack properly with all of my characters and there were no autopathing issues, and that really reduced the micromanagement required. I'm not sure if they're going to add in optional party AI but if they do that'll be another step towards less micromanaging for those that don't like it all that much. 

 

You'll still probably have to rely heavily on pause to get through the tougher difficulties, but on normal (unless they decide to make normal more difficult between now and release) you should be able to beat most enemies with fewer pauses than right now. 

[My feelings on story and dialogues]

I agree with your thoughts on the cat and mouse quest. While I really enjoyed the writing, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop and the sudden twist to be presented. But I got the feeling that the quest might have been a smaller part of a larger questline, and maybe that was just the setup for something to happen down the road... in which case it's fine in its simplicity. 

 

As for the Ogre, having your reasons for doing something doesn't make you a good guy. The cool thing about that quest was that it was really up to your own sensibilities to decide whether the Ogre had good reasons or not.

[This game needs polish!]

That's not how opinions work. People who disagree with negative opinions/criticisms are not always White Knights, and people who prefer it the original way should speak up or certain devs might go around making changes that appeal to the vocal minority based on forum posts.

 

The reason that the "White Knights" didn't rampage through your FTL save thread might be because it was genuinely a good idea to implement a save system and most people could agree on that. Not because they just decided to have a day off. 

[Fog of War design decisions - good or bad?]

I'd prefer line of sight visibility.

[Radical idea - change attributes to more D&D like]

 

Well looks like you are right from a certain point of view. They collected 4 milions dollars promising specific characteristic from beloved games franchise when they mean "Well no in fact we wiil make a game with nothing in common with those games but we need money so yes we put those title as lure, kthxbye".

 

Nothing in common? Are we playing the same game? This is the closest game to the IE games that's come out in more than a decade. Seriously, the way some of you Baldur's Gate 3 types talk I don't even think you've seen the beta and you just assume we're all playing Call of Duty, here. 

[Radical idea - change attributes to more D&D like]

Obsidian Entertainment and our legendary game designers Chris Avellone, Tim Cain, and Josh Sawyer are excited to bring you a new role-playing game for the PC. Project Eternity (working title) pays homage to the great Infinity Engine games of years past: Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, and Planescape: Torment.Project Eternity will take the central hero, memorable companions and the epic exploration of Baldur’s Gate, add in the fun, intense combat and dungeon diving of Icewind Dale, and tie it all together with the emotional writing and mature thematic exploration of Planescape: Torment.

 

I may fail at reading comprehension, but I always read that as 'the combat will be fun and intense, like Icewind Dale's combat' instead of 'the combat will be exactly like the IE games.' Unless you also read "take the central hero, memorable companions [...] of Baldur's Gate" to mean we're revisiting the Spawn of Bhaal.

[Radical idea - change attributes to more D&D like]

1/ Almost everybody know the term Might and Magic and what their represent. (almost everybody thinks Might=Strength in RPGs)

2/ Almost every RPG for last decades is using primary STR for melee, DEX for ranged and INT,WIS for spells.

 

Do you really think its good idea to try to change the perceptions of those attributes and how they are affecting classes? 

 

Obsidian seems to have more faith in human intelligence than you.

[No experience from combat]

I'm okay with this system, but I wouldn't mind if the quest XP was split into smaller, more frequent rewards. I also would be okay with less quest XP if exploration XP could be added - perhaps for just lighting up certain notable areas in a map/dungeon. I think that would go a long way towards making the people who use kill XP as exploration XP happy, but still not only incentivize combat solutions.

[The General Suggestions Thread]

Resolve is already useful for casters due to the concentration boost. Now it will also be useful for front-liners due to the healing boost.

 

I thought one of the problems with Resolve was that casters (positioned correctly) weren't getting hit at all and so interruption never even came into play. 

 

I like the idea of adding a crit bonus to Perception, though.

[The General Suggestions Thread]

B) Resolve should affect healing instead of might. Resolve is both under-powered and not useful enough for every class. This will fix it.

 

So Resolve will only be useful to classes with access to healing?

[The General Suggestions Thread]

PS--shouldn't these collector threads be stiickied??

 

I support this suggestion.

["No Bad Builds" a failure in practice?]

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/perception

 

I perceive that if I kick the Ogre in the junk he will drop his club and not attack me!  Call me crazy but I just don't see this.

 

It's more to spot more subtle openings and weak spots while fighting your enemies, I'd think. Certainly kicking the Ogre in the junk would cause an interrupt, but you have to find a good enough opening to kick him without him blocking you first.

[Party Members: The Beta Version]

Ranger main, with probably priest, chanter, wizard, and rogue party members, provided the companions are all likable. Sixth slot for whichever other companion strikes my fancy, probably a fighter or barbarian.

[Adult females overthrown teen males as largest gaming demographic]

"The spike in the number female gamers is likely tied to widespread smartphone adoption."

 

Gromnir's right. Casual/smartphone users are included in those stats, but that's a separate market from PC and console games. The games that most of us think of when we think about increasing inclusion probably only comprise ~30-50% of the study (MMOs and the Action/RPG sections)*. It would have been nice if the study had included the gender breakdown for each individual category, and I'm pretty sure such a breakdown would've revealed that men still make up the majority of players in those categories. 

 

That's not to say that equal, positive representation of both genders isn't something to strive for in video games... but the way people are citing that study is misleading.

 

*I'm guessing based on the numbers on the social game breakdown page, since I can't find a better breakdown

["No Bad Builds" a failure in practice?]

 

All games that you've mentioned have INTUITIVE STAT SYSTEM. IN-TU-IT-IV-E. You don't need to read manual to understand that stat called 'damage' should obviously boost... DAMAGE.

You understand what I'm saying, or I need hamster-English translator?

 

I understand what you're saying, and I still think that if you have problems understanding that might boosts damage after it's been explained to you, you're digging your heels in just because you can. It's not nearly as big of a deal as you're making it out to be, and it's not some hurdle that new players are going to have to overcome, unless they can't read the two-sentence explanation on the character creation page.

 

You can't claim to have understood every facet of how attributes interact in D&D without reading at least a little. That's all you have to do to understand how Might works. 

["No Bad Builds" a failure in practice?]

 

Examples of those games, please.

 

*rolls eyes* You respond with asking me for a list of every game (RPG) that doesn't have D&D style stats, instead of addressing the fact that most people can read the description for Might and adapt accordingly - and that younger players who haven't spent years playing D&D games will adapt faster than you. That was actually the point of my response, btw - when you said 'if we don't get it, those 17 year olds won't'. But hey, don't let me stop you from focusing on only one aspect of my post.

 

Dungeon Defenders - RPG, hero stats split into damage/health/casting rate/speed

Borderlands 2 - RPG, no stat system at all. 

Skyrim - RPG, the stat system just increases your available HP/MP/Stamina.

Mass Effect - class system

 

And that's not counting other games that have character progression that don't really label themselves as RPGs, like Payday 2, Dishonored, and Sanctum 2. And it's hardly a comprehensive list because I don't play a huge variety of games. 

["No Bad Builds" a failure in practice?]

 

Yeah, sure. they had other systems with similar stats. It's not always 6 stats, yes, still, from game to game they deviate slightly and I've never encountered non-intuitive stat system in modern rpg. Even in Dragon Age 2 stats were self-explanatory and better, and it's a disturbing sign!

 

What you mean is, of course, you've never encountered a system that deviated further from D&D norm than maybe renaming a stat to something else, or adding in a stat for a unique mechanic. Dragon Age 2's system is only superior in your eyes because it's closer to D&D. 

 

Unlike D&D /= unintuitive. And I'm thinking most people coming in from less D&D-inspired games will take one look at Might, read the description, and go "okay, I can work with this" instead of "where's my strength stat?"

["No Bad Builds" a failure in practice?]

One more thing. If we (backers that have access to beta), geeks, have difficulty understanding this system (at least huge % of us) - do you expect that your 17-y-old modern player will understand?

 

I have a feeling that the average 17-year-old modern player will have less difficulty understanding the system, because they haven't had the previous experience with D&D to cloud their understanding. 

[No experience from combat]

No XP for kill = this game has nothing to do with old-school RPGs and is worse that Dragon Age 2

WOW. That is ... <makes diplomacy check> bold.

 

Yeah, it certainly reads like satire, doesn't it? 

[More like BG2 please]

While I would agree with you if were talking about a pen and paper system, in a cRPG this just removes diversity. If in the whole game there will not be monsters that can kill you with one ability I will be sad. Most epic battles were vs Basilisks, Elder Beholders and yes mages with Instant kill spells. Fighting these guys until you figured out how to fight them was epic and feeling of figuring out was also epic. 

 

What? No it didn't feel 'epic', it felt boring. Basilisks especially so, since once you had the proper defenses up they were trivial at best to defeat. Clearing out that area east of Beregost was just a huge chore of casting protection from petrification and then sending in whoever you had cast it on to kill everything, rinse, repeat. 

["No Bad Builds" a failure in practice?]

With the old attribute systems that we are familiar with, each class had a cookie-cutter stat distribution. With PoE's system, EVERY CHARACTER has the same cookie-cutter stat distribution. I think that's a step backwards, not forwards.

 

None of my characters have had stat arrays even remotely close to yours, yet I've been more than successful playing the beta.  

 

Yeah, you can build a wizard and fighter the exact same and win with them both if you play to their strengths. And that was the point. If you can't imagine any other build than what you're using for both of them, that's your playstyle affecting things, not any railroading being done by the current attribute system. 

 

Edit: Per and Res do need a little work.

[Radical suggestion]

* Into the Fray - As is.

* Knock Down - As is, except it's automatically upgraded to Mass Knockdown at Level X / by a Feat. Or you get to knock down a certain amount of enemies per level.

* Unbending - Turn into a passive. Automatically triggers once per encounter, X times per rest, if you go down under 50% stamina.

* Unbroken - Turn into a passive. Automatically triggers once per encounter, X times per rest, one round after you get to 0 stamina.

* Surge - Get rid of it. Redundant with Unbending.

* Vigorous Defense - As is.

 

With the limited rests setup, Unbending and Unbroken should remain active abilities. Automatically activating them could lead to strategic problems (having your fighter stand up just in time to catch an attack) and/or burning those uses on trash encounters (oh, look, a wood beetle! the priest is mid-cast for a heal but this triggers instead, sorry). Surge would also be less redundant with your current ideas, being the only manually activated stamina regen.