Shevek

Tart: The skill system in this game does not preclude combat prowess. In other words, unlike Fallout, putting points into those skills is not done at the expense combat ability and many of those skills tie into combat in some way. The character development system in this game is about one thing: killing. Your silly statements and childish insults cant change that.

Maybe thats what needs to change. How about something as straight forward as a one time objective xp bonus for clearing dungeon and wilderness maps of 80% of all hostiles? That rewards a nice chunk of xp for killing while avoiding degenerative scenarios by setting the bar at 80% rather than 100%. Still crappy but not as 100% crappy as no kill xp at all. No, that would directly reward precisely what they want to avoid incentivizing. They don't want you to get into fights for no other reason than to get XP.That is silly. So, now we do quests for pig farmers just to get xp? Isnt that degenerative? What does xp do? It drives the character development forward by granting you levels. What do levels do? In this game, they pretty much just make you better at killing. There is almost no character development aimed at nonviolent play (except for a couple skills that do not preclude combat prowess). Think about it. The notion of an xp system that drives combat prowess but that is geared by rewarding noncombat and combat decisions equally is totally illogical (especially when nonviolent options are driven almost exclusively by a stat array that doesnt change past level 1 and is therefore not dependent on experience!). At the very least, they should award xp objective bonuses for clearing hostiles from certain maps or downing epic opponents.

Enchantments?

Maybe thats what needs to change. How about something as straight forward as a one time objective xp bonus for clearing dungeon and wilderness maps of 80% of all hostiles? That rewards a nice chunk of xp for killing while avoiding degenerative scenarios by setting the bar at 80% rather than 100%. Still crappy but not as 100% crappy as no kill xp at all.

Necessary? No. Possible and common? Yes. Experienced players who have replayed the entire IE catalogue a dozen times do not rest often but they are in the minority. When these games came out zerg+rest spam was common. http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/18370/i-rest-after-every-battle

Maybe not everyone does but many do rest spam. I am willing to say most folks zerg and rest spam the ie games. Until they die, then they metagame the tough encounter that killed them.

Why memorize more than one haste when you can just mash rest real quick and get it back? Edit: Also, its pretty unfair to assume poe will have as much creature variety as the ie titles (bg1+2,iwd1+2,xpacs,pst). IE games and expansions got to that expansive creature list over many titles with several teams over years. If it matches BG1+totsc, then we are good.

This game delivers on most counts. It seems some people are bitching because the difficulty needs to be tuned and at present you cant just zerg through. People are used to casting haste, selecting all, clicking on enemies and sipping their coffee while playing the IE games. Once they tune the health:stamina ratios, alter enemy ai, add in a full talent/item/crafting list, and so on, then they will probably find a way to zerg thru trash. At that point, it will feel like IE again to some folks when on Easy difficulty and less people will whine.

It makes sense that town fights would be tough. Not only are you well rested and fully outfitted but so are your opponents. And in BG2, many of the difficult fights were in town (the liches leading to Kangaxx comes to mind). Also, they stated that the encounters will be tuned to a party going full bore. It just means the encounters will be made with the understanding that players will be able to blow their ability wad on every encounter. Thats not so bad. This does not necessarily mean all city fights will be harder per se. It could mean that the fights are just larger (a-la Copper Coronet).

Thats too complicated. Double the ratios and fix focus fire ai. Problem solved.

Sawyer has already stated that they will be looking at reducing focus fire AI to spread out the damage. Once they do that and maybe tweak the stamina:health ratios a bit, time between rests will be good. People should probably try to adjust away from the prebuff and zerg mentality of the IE games too.

He is a old guy that uses something other than physical strength to have "might" with a sword. All other nerd-isms are irrelevant.

"Actual rogues" can "properly" use bows

There is nothing wrong with might except maybe the name. I bet if they renamed it power or potency then less people whould whine about muscle wizards. No I wouldn't because strength is would still be missing, you can not have a bow that requires a strength to pull it back or a proper ecumbrance system, and kills role play. This game is supposed to be a spiritral successor to the BG series but the might attribute is more akin to a tribute to world of Warcraft. There could never be a way to allow bashing in of doors or chests. Its flawed. It allows the most powerful or mighty wizard to hit someone with a two handed sword as it does a fighter. That's wrong. Two things: 1. BG didnt have a very good encumbrance system either. In fact, its inventory system was a mess that was only remedied by potion bags, bags of holding, ammo bags, and gem bags (which all effectively negated the need for inventory slots or a strength score). 2. You are looking at it all wrong. Who is to say that magical power CAN'T make you swing a sword better? Hell, worked pretty good for this guy...

There is nothing wrong with might except maybe the name. I bet if they renamed it power or potency then less people whould whine about muscle wizards.

I personally love this mechanic. It makes sense and it promotes strategic play. All it takes is a few small changes to lengthen the adventuring day. Once they get everything working right (DT, enemy AI, etc) and they tweak the ratios, I am pretty sure the whining will stop. In other words, this is not a core design issue, it is a set of small technical issues that can be addressed without shifting core design.

System is fine. Just needs tuning. Game is getting better with every patch. Chill.

The core system is fine but it does need tweaks. Leave the number of camping supplies alone, double the ratio and reduce enemy focus fire.

The health/stamina system is fine. They just need to tweak the ratios.

What?! They did most damage and taking two points in two handed weapon style let you critical hit on 19 and 20 which meant even more damage. Minsc and later Dorn were always my biggest damage dealers as far as fighters go. My Ranger/Cleric wielding a Crom Faeyr and a Flail of Ages was always my party's murder king.

Its good that they buffed 2 handers. They sucked in the IE games and people only used the holy avenger because of op dispel. Gromnir is right, btw. Twf means you can enchant two weapons. You cant forget the value of that. Edit: I hope there are talents to further develop the one handed + no shield fighting style. It is often very neglected and yet is so iconic. An accuracy bomus seems like its not enough.

And the vast majority of them are just simple +x of y type stuff.You say that like its a bad thing.

The perks in Fallout were made over about a week (or was it a weekend?) and they were great. It doesnt take long to add this stuff.

They designed this to work in the absence of turns. So, no, tb would not work well here. I am a fan of tb tho. If Feargus were to work with the Deadlands license like he mentioned in that Matt Chat, tb there would be epic. Like Fallout in the Weird West.

I think the character development system would be better if there were boatloads of talents and players picked one every other level (a talent one level and then a character based special ability the other - to make leveling more exciting). One could even make the case for a talent every level. That way, there could be more build variety and, therefore, even greater replayability.