Shevek

The 2H talent kinda sucks but I still grab it. Would be nice if it gave like 10 deflection.

Its not about all builds being viable; its about building a party for how you want to play. If you want to make a party you have to micromanage, you can do that but it requires you micromanage and pause alot. If you dont want to pause alot then you have build for that too. The game gives you enough rope to hang yourself with so you have to make sure to think things through when allocating stats and choosing talents. Yuniko: No offense but this is BETA. The paladin is bugged. Just report the bug and move on.

My experience? My tactics? Tank goes out. Tank makes things mad. Tank runs back. Pause. Select all. Hit A. Click on enemy. Unpause. Rinse. Repeat. Killing trash is easy in this game.

I am focusing on the barbs aoe. I like to get that interupting feat also so making that aoe big helps. I do put some in con and per though.

One final bit of advice. Lead with your tank. He had a big shield. Let enemies target him then dog pile one enemy at a time.

Waffle: You noy knowing how to build a passive party is normal since they plopped you into beta at the mid levels with a bunch of characters. Beta is not casual friendy. Do this: Make a barbarian. Use a two hander. Get feats that make your aoe attacks accurate and give you deflection for using a two hander - passive bonuses. Focus on int and might. Pick a background where you start with a 2 hander. Stick priests heavy armor on him. Give him priest's 2 handed hammer as backup for armored guys. Take xbow from fighter. Give it to priest. Take big shield from priest and give it to fighter. Have fighter use priests one handed hammer too. Have rogue use a bow. Sell off other rogue melee weapons. Sell of wizard melee weapons. Buy a new adventurer. Get a chanter. Get the background where you get a poleaxe. Give chanter wizards armor. Use chanter song that gives fire dmg. Focus on resolve, int, and dex. Now kill the town guy. Then kill off your wizard - not passive friendly and aoe sucks. Get a cypher. Make him a WOOD elf with high resolve and per. Turn in quest and level everyone up. Now go kill the rest of the beta with your passive combat party.

Well. Thats fine. Hard should be hard. I am just addressing Waffle here who thinks Easy is Hard.

Ya. I used none of that just to prove a point. All outdoor guys dead. Almost everyone at max health. Fighter at 80%. Seriously, its not a difficult game.

Just talking about the Crossing outdoor part. Not the spider cave or the statue cave. Almost everyones health is max. Fighter is down to about 80%. In the cave I do have to use some charms and the occaisonal heal. Still not pausing like crazy tho. I will try the spider cave ahain to see how I do with little pausing or skill use.

Waffle: 1. I just ran through Dyrford Crossing on normal. I only pause to retarget when an enemy went down. I used no active abilities. I killed all the beetles, spiders, wyverns etc using auto attack and a chanters song. It was easy on normal. Easy is easier than normal. Therefore, easy is easier than easy already. If you dont want to use active abilities then build a party for passive attacking. Its a bit tough for a casual to figure this out in beta since start you out with a full party at mid level. In the full game you start at level 1. 2. The beta gameplay is not necessarily representative of the full game since it starts you off at the mid levels and off the main quest path (to avoid spoilers).

Sensuki: Well, they may add those abilities or something like that. Who knows. I just dont see engagement as this horrible flaw. I do think engagement attacks do a bit too much damage but there is no need to remove an entire mechanic when a simple tweak can address a concern.

Sensuki: Considering that MANY folks have complained over the amount of active skill use (the last thing on Sawyer's tumbler I think), I have significant doubts that the devs will add more active skill use now that they got it right. If this were a TB game, I would be right there with you. However, with RTwP, design has to shift a bit with regards to active skill use. Waffle: I will put it plainly. Easy is already easy. I am not against that. Its just already simple. There is nothing for them to change short of turning the game into a Lego title with ZERO difficulty. Part of the issue is that the beta takes place in the mid levels in a place that is off the main quest. Also, town combat is tuned up a bit since you can rest at the inn immediately. This makes that first fight in town pretty tough for a newbie. You ecperience should be different in the full game when you start at level 1 on the main quest areas.

Waffle: 1. I find normal to be pretty damn easy. I havent bothered with easy but if its easier than normal I dont what to tell you. 2. Super casual gamers may not be the target audience for this game. They stated as much during the kickstarter. 3. Sensuki also said the game was easy. He just doesnt think its fun. He wants more tactical depth. That generally means harder to master, fyi. Reread the thread.

Sensuki: I dont think this game needs more active ability options. It has plenty. Passive attacks like engagement that reduce micromanagement and punish fool hardy running across the battlefield are fine in principle. Maybe they need to be tweaked a bit dmg wise but they arent some huge issue.

Again, the IE games had pretty boring gameplay in my estimation. The class and ability design actually give this game a leg up in my view. Issues arising from combat mobility are relatively minor. I just dont see how running around in circles gulping potions would make combat more exciting. I am sure some relatively small numbers tweaks to engagement can make that possible though.

I just dont find it any more boring than any other RTwP rpg. If anything, I enjoy that more classes have stuff they can do if I want to bother myself to do it. The chanter enchants my weapons and sometimes I have him whip out a summon. The tank agros enemies and sometimes I use his knockdown. The rogue kills crap from afar and sometimes I use her dmg clicky. The barbarian kills crap and if he gets agroed I hit the endurance regen. The cypher shoots stuff and sometimes I have him charm. The only class thats a bit boring is the priest but interdiction is kinda cool so I took talents for that. I built my guys passive and its working. I have tactical options I can use when I want them (I focus on buffing the per encounter ones). I can ignore the clickies when I dont want to be bothered or the fight doesnt warrant it. I dunno. I dont find combat super chaotic as some folks say. I dont find it boring. It works. It keeps my attention. It rewards me for being active but it does not force me to on trash mobs. Some minor tweaks to engagement (like lowering the dmg a smidge) or having dex affect movement (and calling it Agility) might be ok or they might not. The point is those are very minor tweaks. The system has good bones.

Sensuki: I agree. The IE games did reward cheap gameplay. This game plays much more fairly and I feel much more rewarded when I win at it. That is why I am freaking baffled at people who seem to think that combat needs a drastic overhaul.

Fyi, I just got a melee chanter with a reach weapon instead of a pally, even easier. Again, if the op wants to play passive, it is possible. I had to pause only a few times in the town fight. Very little against the beetles. The spiders were ok. I tank and spanked the ogre. All on normal. If you are hyper pausing on easy, you either made poor choices when crafting your party or you do not realize that max party size is 6 and you can recruit another at the inn.

I did do a replay of BG 1/2 recently. 5 man party. A ranger/cleric, an inquisitor, an archer, a fighter/thief and a cleric/illusionist. I dont recall many deep tactics being needed over that the ones I mentioned above.

If I had a bad experience because I played like how? Its not like I cheated. I didnt even prebuff as much as some folks do or use silly spell sequencer foolishness. I used standard spells as intended by the devs. In any case, most battles were over before they started. I just dont see the difference.

Most of the combat I recall was using summons, web and/or stinking cloud to cheap out the bad ai and then either AoE stuff (there was an aoe spell, cant remember the name, aoe poison spell, always used it) to death or using ranged to kill stuck enemies. That was the "tactics" you needed for most of the encounters. Harder stuff might have required you prebuff more or strip protections. Also, you said that vid was with difficulty mods? That drastically changes how games play. That being said, I recently did a BG1/2 run with some difficulty mods and I didnt really need many spiffy tactics. It was cloud/web and then that aoe poison spell. Everything else was just hasted tank and spank with summons when I was lazy. Admittedly, I do recall bringing an Inquisitor to dispell the enemies that the mod prebuffed.

Quad "These are just filler battles, rudimentary positioning and spell use should be enough here." Thats all thats needed. You are playing the game wrong. Learn the fundamentals and you do just fine. Especially on easy. I sure as heck didnt even need to watch a gameplay vid. I just build my characters for passive fighting and made some smart choices at the start of combat. Frankly, I feel that the IE games were very similar for the most part. In those games you did even more BEFORE combat started (buffing, cheap aoe crap, etc). There was very little reactivity during combat in IE except for potion guzzling or cheap spell protection stripping in late game BG2.

Quad: Thats just silly. The IE games were not that easy. If you dont like a challenge, why play a game? Go read a fantasy book or rewatch LotR if you just want some sword and sorcery but no challenge. I think its this kind of thinking that led to the decline cRPG gaming after the 90s. As a side note, I just made a Barb, sold excess weapons, got another party member (Pally), killed Mekrath, sold more excess loot, killed off the BB Wizard and got a Cypher. I then proceeded to murder beetles by the score and I needed to pause only sparingly. Admittedly, this was on normal. I might have had to pause more on hard. I dunno. Combat felt alright to me. Maybe some UI tweaks here and there to improve combat feedback but I dont see the problem.

Well, I did and I'm not ashamed to admit it. That being said, I enjoyed the difficulty. I didn't go on the Bio forums and complain about how killing poisonous spiders and wyverns wasn't as easy butchering mutant furry midgets.

Well, there you go.