"No Bad Builds" a failure in practice?

[Doppelschwert]

Fighters and barbarians profit because their engagement range is increased, so they are a bigger thread in the battlefield and it's more difficult to go around them. Fighters can easier lock down enemies and the barbarian can easier draw them close for his carnage.

Basically, ranged characters can stay further away from melee and melee can better hold the line. It increases control about your positioning which is a untapped dimension by attributes.

 

Range with melee weapons is problematic as some weapons have their reach as a special feature that distinguishes them from other weapons (spears, etc). I feel like increasing engagement is a more useful way to go.

[Sensuki]

Engagement is an AoE though, not a range.

[Infinitron]

 

This debate really is a waste of time.

 

If all attributes are useful to all characters, then that's good. That's a design goal.

 

But if you can play your character in the same way no matter what attributes he has, with no perceptible tradeoff, then that's bad. That's what beta testers need to be verifying now, IMO.

You are contradicting yourself. We are the beta testers and we are verifying problems by debating stuff in this forum.

 

I think "no bad builds" will always be a failure. Just makes the whole choice of stats totally uninteresting and unimportant. If I can just pick random stats and still have a good character in all situations then you have totally failed with game design.

 

 

I'm not contradicting anything. All attributes being useful to all characters doesn't mean all those characters have to play the same way.

 

Get. Your. Head. Out. Of. The. D&D. Box.

Edited August 21, 2014 by Infinitron

[AdaMusic]

 

 

This debate really is a waste of time.

 

If all attributes are useful to all characters, then that's good. That's a design goal.

 

But if you can play your character in the same way no matter what attributes he has, with no perceptible tradeoff, then that's bad. That's what beta testers need to be verifying now, IMO.

You are contradicting yourself. We are the beta testers and we are verifying problems by debating stuff in this forum.

 

I think "no bad builds" will always be a failure. Just makes the whole choice of stats totally uninteresting and unimportant. If I can just pick random stats and still have a good character in all situations then you have totally failed with game design.

 

 

I'm not contradicting anything. Attributes being useful to all characters doesn't mean those characters have to play the same way.

 

Get. Your. Head. Out. Of. The. D&D. Box.

 

 

Get. Your. Head. Out. Of. The. Ad hominem. Box.

[Doppelschwert]

Engagement is an AoE though, not a range.

 

But is it affected by intelligence? I think its attribute independent at the moment, I only recall a fighter ability modifying engagement range.

[Sensuki]

I am really not sure, but I'm going to go with probably not. My point was more on the programming side if you made something that added range, it wouldn't work properly.

[AdaMusic]

I am really not sure, but I'm going to go with probably not. My point was more on the programming side if you made something that added range, it wouldn't work properly.

 

Why wouldn't it work properly? Should just be a change of a simple variable.

[Doppelschwert]

Why wouldn't it work?

They have a passive ability for the fighter that increases engagement range, so the tech is clearly there.

[Sensuki]

It's okay for the Fighter who can engage multiple enemies at once. The Barbarian cannot. To benefit from your proposal, the Barbarian would have to take the talent that grants an additional engagement target.

 

I think a larger engagement range is a bit silly by default because it only delays your disengagement attack.

[Doppelschwert]

The barbarian still benefits for the first enemy. My point is that the enemies have to go a longer route to pass the barbarian without actually triggering an engagement when the fight starts. You're right about the disengagment attack being delayed, but then again I'm talking about an increase of at most a multiplier about 1.5, so it's enough to matter but not enough to make it unreasonable.

Edited August 21, 2014 by Doppelschwert

[archangel979]

I will just be happy if the game will be moddable enough so we can restore IE stats and give them similar IE bonuses. No amount of explanation will make me like these gamism stats. I like simulation approach of IE games to stats even if there were dump stats.

[Grand_Commander13]

I find the zealotry of the AD&D crowd to be admirable but misplaced. Every single thread about the attributes has to be about how "unintuitive" a system that says "You want damage? Increase this attribute" is.

 

Never mind that this thread was originally supposed to be about whether the design goal of the game is being met: can you build each class with any mixture of attributes and still have a viable way to play them that really emphasizes the strength those attributes bring?

[fangGWJ]

I love the Diablo 3 failed comments...  It failed to the tune of 20 million copies.  I hope beyond hope PoE fails just as much!

 

I won't say that D3 doesn't have variety issues, even currently.  However, the fact that they keep pushing that lack of variety to higher and higher difficulties and much later in the uber high end game means to me they are succeeding at working the problem. 

 

I.E. it was one thing when people bitched about lack of variety in Diablo 3 at level 25 on normal difficulty.  But now the complaints are more muted and don't occur until level 70 with 100 paragon levels on torment diffuclty 4+.

 

And to obsidian's credit, there are several nice conversation options/uses for resolve. (and perhaps perception?)

 

My biggest problem is the crashes/stalls on loading and leveling up.  Plus, while I understand and support the reasoning for no combat xp, the fact that the combat can be so sporadically brutal even on easy begs for some sort of compensation and risks combat being less fun.  And if combat is less/not fun, then classes, stats and party composition matters even less.

[Sarex]

Ugh Diablo 3 was selling like crazy before it was even released. Once it was released their sales speed dropped drastically.

[FunGrinder]

I am not a beta participant, but from what I can read there's not too much incentive for certain classes to get stats that are beneficial to them. For example, mage spells benefit from strength, which I find really awkward, unintuitive and superfluous. Str should only matter to mages that engage in physical combat.

 

Not having a go but it's not strength. Its might. As in magical Might, mental might, physical might, strength of your healing....basically being mighty.... which doesn't always mean how well you swing a sword.  The others are then based around ...

 

how well you take a hit (con)

how much mental defense/will power you have (res)

how well you know how to use your might (int) 

How well you can see/judge openings in your opponents attacks (per)

How well(not how hard) you strike on target (dex)

 

so i think in principle these are actually pretty well thought out even if the balancing needs improved to make them more effective.

 

Just my thoughts

[Malekith]

One of the reasons why attributes are a bit disappointing is because the Lead Designer actually does not like attributes in general. He has in the past taken snipes at other designers who design the attribute system before the rest of the game systems and in the case of Pillars of Eternity has done the opposite.

 

All of the game systems were in place before he decided to design attributes.

 

While not necessarily a bad thing per se, these facts alone are part of the reason why attributes feel inconsequential in general.

 

I believe he is also not interested in attributes having much of an impact. An example: A Level 1 PE Fighter gets +25 Accuracy, but the maximum accuracy you can get from Dex is +20. In D&D, at first level your attribute basically determines how good you are at stuff. Fighters get a +1 to BAB (or Thaco in 2E) but they get up to +5 attack bonus from Strength in D&D (and I think -3 to THACO from a 18/00 STR in 2E) - much more than a +1 at 1st level.

Then he should remove attributes completely from the system. Six attributes are a nightmere to balance, and a wasted effort since they don't have any impact and the system works just fine without them. I know Josh felt that he had to put six attributes in there because D&D, but he designed them in such a way that the people who would complain because "no attributes", don't like them and complain anyway.

He should have removed attributes, and have abilities and talents as the sole methods to tweak the classes. And then he should have the six intuitive attributes (str/dex/con/int/wis/cha), only with zero mechanical impact and used only in dialogue and scripted interactions. All problems solved, it would be a better game closer to Josh's vision,

and the gnognards who would complain are propably complaining anyway.

[PrimeJunta]

An attribute-less system would be mechanically more sound, no doubt.

 

How well it would fit an IE successor is another question.

 

I say make these attributes work. Can't be that hard.

[Helm]

 

I am not a beta participant, but from what I can read there's not too much incentive for certain classes to get stats that are beneficial to them. For example, mage spells benefit from strength, which I find really awkward, unintuitive and superfluous. Str should only matter to mages that engage in physical combat.

 

Not having a go but it's not strength. Its might. As in magical Might, mental might, physical might, strength of your healing....basically being mighty.... which doesn't always mean how well you swing a sword.  The others are then based around ...

I also like how raising your character's might attribute makes bullets and arrows more mighty by defying the laws of physics.

 

They should call it super mysterious magical damage multiplier.

[Malekith]

An attribute-less system would be mechanically more sound, no doubt.

 

How well it would fit an IE successor is another question.

 

I say make these attributes work. Can't be that hard.

There would be attributes (the traditional ones even), just without mechanical impact. They would be used only in dialogue/scripted interactions.

It's not as PoE is much of a spiritual successor to IE games as far as systems go, so why not go all the way. You can still deliver gameplay that *feels* IE like with a completely different system. This half measure does more harm than good, with the "AD&D or bust" crown unhappy, and the "D&D sucks" crowd (that Saywer is a part of and the game appeals to more) is needlessly constrained because Sawyer feels he needs to pay lip service to a system that it's design is diametricaly opposed with what he tries to achieve

[archangel979]

In later versions of D&D all stats were useful to fighters except Charisma. To mages all were useful but strength and Charisma. A pattern was that most classes had one stat + charisma as less useful unless the class was based on Charisma. There was no need to reinvent the wheel , they could have just made charisma more useful for all classes.

Edited August 21, 2014 by archangel979

[Panteleimon]

 

 

I am not a beta participant, but from what I can read there's not too much incentive for certain classes to get stats that are beneficial to them. For example, mage spells benefit from strength, which I find really awkward, unintuitive and superfluous. Str should only matter to mages that engage in physical combat.

 

Not having a go but it's not strength. Its might. As in magical Might, mental might, physical might, strength of your healing....basically being mighty.... which doesn't always mean how well you swing a sword.  The others are then based around ...

I also like how raising your character's might attribute makes bullets and arrows more mighty by defying the laws of physics.

 

They should call it super mysterious magical damage multiplier.

 

 

 

It is strange. Didn't crossbows(I don't think there were any other self-propelled weapons in those games) in the IE games NOT use strength as a damage modifier, in exchange for a higher base damage range? Seems like that's something that's likely to change before the game ships.

Edited August 21, 2014 by Panteleimon

[Wintersong]

Even though the "no bad builds" policy of making all attributes equally important for all classes sounded somewhat good on paper, I think its execution has proved a failure. There are still bad builds and dump stats, and even worse than before, it's the same stats for ALL classes now.

 

Every character I make has 18 strength(or more). No matter if it's a fighter, a cleric, or a wizard, it's got to have big muscles because big muscles just make everyone more effective at what they do.

 

Every character I make has minimum perception and resolve because these stats don't do anything.

 

Almost every character I make has maximum dexterity except for support characters.

 

Intellect does nothing for characters that don't use area effects, status effects, or DoTs.

 

Constitution does nothing for characters that don't fight up front.

 

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.

The system doesn't work because you munchkin your way? Much like we could do (rerolling for hours if needed) in IE games?

 

Resolve adds to Will defense. Only for that, it's not a dump stat. Also adds concentration that it may be interesting if you plan to do some casting in hot zones.

 

Perception can be sweet with high dexterity in ranged anti-magic-joes... if I understood well the interruption part. Melee can also get good use of it?

 

I don't really know skills of each class so well as to be able to really judge Intellect.

 

Constitution gives more life. As in every other game. ¬.¬ Keep it to a minimum and see what happens to the wizard when a stone beetle burrows it way to him.

 

Might isn't Strength and is no mandatory. Obviously, decent values are interesting be it for damage and/or healing. But you don't really need to max it unless you want a super specialist.

 

Dexterity is more of the same.

 

And all that not considering the little extra stuff that the stats have. Not saying that some tweaking shouldn't be done to them but them being a failure? No. I don't feel like it's the case.

Edited August 21, 2014 by Wintersong

[termokanden]

For me, the six attributes were also about flavor. They were your way of telling yourself that your character was this strong, this smart and could move like a dead snail. I couldn't care less if it's not challenging to pick your stats because that's not what it was about.

 

In PoE, it feels like too much like a mechanical exercise, carefully constructed so you really don't know what to pick, and sadly also so you might as well go with the same distrubtion for different classes. I actually enjoyed the fact that in AD&D, different classes need different attributes. If you're a skinny bookworm who faints at the sight of blood, you really are more likely to become a mage than a fighter. Somewhere along the way, some people apparently started to hate these fantasy stereotypes.

 

The system is by no means going to be a deal-breaker for me, and I can't really say I expect it to change all that much, but I can't help but ask the following question: if we really want every attribute to matter equally much to everyone, why don't we simply throw out all the attributes? I know it has been said already, but I'm seriously wondering if we couldn't just as well do that.

Edited August 21, 2014 by termokanden

[DigitalCrack]

People seem to have too much of a D&D mindset on some of the stats.  I have noticed in multiple threads people equating might to strength when that is not at all the equivalent.  Might is simply in reference to the power of your attack (no matter the type) not a reflection of literal muscle strength.  Not sure if people realize the system is set up so you can roll (for example) a wizard with max con and res giving you a hard to interrupt front liner wizard if you want.  Its hard to get out of that D&D comparison in our heads but if you do you'll see the potential.

[Matt516]

One stat point was almost never meaningful.

Sure if that one point brought you up to 18/00 strength or gave you the ability to dual class then that was a very good point.

 

But if you are honestly trying to tell us going from 10 to an 11 was very important...

 

 

Fair point.. I should have said every 2 stat points. The eccentricity of D&D 2nd edition in that respect was always rather strange.

 

With that concession though, my point still stands. Going from 12 to 14 to 16 to 18 in most stats provided significant benefits, much more than the marginal percentage increases in the current stats system. I'm not saying it's bad, I am honestly still undecided. It will depend on how combat works and feels after they get the major bugs and balance issues worked out.