New build feedback

[Guest 4ward]

Am keeping my fingers crossed for level-scaling ala BG2 and hope to have it in main and greater side quests since that would ensure that there is consistency in difficulty throughout the game. It doesn't get harder and it doesn't get easier.

Also i think it would be kind of cool to have a skill that let's fighters learn new talents from enemies who use them in battle and for casters to learn new spells which enemies use against the party. Kind of like getting new scrolls that enemies would drop in BG2.

[Karkarov]

I seem to recall Josh saying there would be minimal level scaling for the main quest line and no level scaling for side quest areas?

Pretty much.  The main quest will scale (for the completionists so they can get to the end game and not have it be the last fight in Skyrim) but side areas outside the main quest will not scale in any way.

[Namutree]

I seem to recall Josh saying there would be minimal level scaling for the main quest line and no level scaling for side quest areas?

I'm pretty sure he only said he was considering it. 

 

 

Am keeping my fingers crossed for level-scaling ala BG2 and hope to have it in main and greater side quests since that would ensure that there is consistency in difficulty throughout the game. It doesn't get harder and it doesn't get easier.

 

That is the antitheses to the entire concept of leveling up. Not to mention extremely bland. If that's the plan it would be best to simply get rid of leveling altogether.

 

 

Am keeping my fingers crossed for level-scaling ala BG2 

BG2 had crap level scaling. If you were low level it didn't make a difference, and if you were high level it was a pain. It was some of the best level scaling I've ever seen, but that's because Bioware used it sparingly. There is a reason why the best implementation of level scaling is when it's hardly used, and why when it's implemented a lot it ruins the game. That reason is that level-scaling SUCKS!!! 

Edited October 12, 2014 by Namutree

[JFSOCC]

Filling out the bestiary is obviously an objective.

I would find it a great idea if you could get rewarded xp for completing (large parts of) a bestiary.

 

Perhaps the lore skill could be made more interesting if it provides you with subtle bonuses against enemies you've... dissected. Extra critical chance against known enemies would make the lore skill pretty sweet in combat, I imagine.

[JFSOCC]

 

The IE games were not sandbox games, far from it. The Fallout games, which came out around the same time, were.

 

Of course, the XP system has nothing to do with whether something is a sandbox game or not.

 

BG 1 and BG2 were very high on the "sandbox" ladder. Not quite up on top with Fallout and Elder Scrolls, but player freedom was extremely significant. In the Enhanced Editions (which incorporate ToSC and ToB), and especially in umbrella mods like Big World, this is particularly evident. Once out of the initial "dungeon", the player was free to explore an enormous world, do a huge amount of quests in any order, and kill and loot many enemies. In fact, exploring BG1 and BG2 in this "sandbox" manner was absolutely awesome - and it was made possible, to a large extent, by the kill xp and loot system, that actually rewarded the player for independent actions outside the main plot line.

 

Removing this kind of incentive takes a lot of fun out of "free roam", and makes the game more dull for everyone.

 

Perhaps we should ask Josh how he envisions this, will it be possible for players to earn enough xp "off the grid" so they can get to places with greater challenge, without needing the critical path to get there?

 

I have some hope that the Stronghold provides an opportunity of helping level your characters, so you can do just that. (if you so choose)

 

There is also the 15 level dungeon you might earn some rewards.

Edited October 12, 2014 by JFSOCC

[archangel979]

 

 

 

 

 

There is no level scaling in PoE.

 

And that is not a good thing. Also, it is not level scaling. BG games added more enemies, not scaled all of them to your level. Also it wasn't adjusted for each player level but only at some thresholds. The system was so well done in BG that I didn't even know about the system until I read it on BGEE boards.

 

No level scaling is always good. The biggest flaw of BG2 by far was the insufferable level scaling. God I wish I could find a mod to get rid of it. In some cases the game can actually get harder from leveling up! That's BS!!! Leveling up should always be a good thing with no downsides whatsoever. I've played a lot of RPG's, and I have yet to ever play one that was better thanks to level scaling.

 

I just cannot agree with you on this. The sheer fact that I played BG2 for more then 10 years without noticing level scaling is a proof in my eyes that BG2 system was perfect.

[Hormalakh]

 

If the feedback isn't worthwhile, they shouldn't listen to it. There haven't really been any great reasons as to why combat XP should be put into place other than "Combat generally is boring to play in PE and so at least make it worthwhile for us!" Josh himself has said, and I'm paraphrasing here, that if his game isn't fun without XP adulterating the gaming experience, that he doesn't want gamers playing it.

 

The problem with combat isn't the lack of XP: it's the combat. XP will not make me enjoy it any more. At that point, I'd just be expected to suffer through it.

 

As for what you said re: the lore skill, it again flies in the face of Josh's design goals when it comes to PoE. He has stated several times that he'd like to minimize meta-gaming as much as possible. This is exactly why we don't have hard-counters and other "fun and unexpected" things that were plentiful in the old IE games. It's because Josh doesn't want players making decisions without the maximum available information, and once you know that information, the challenge is already gone. Even without a walkthrough, once you've played the game once or twice, there's really no reason to play the game with the lore skill, as you'd already have an idea as to what to expect with each enemy.

 

It's a poorly designed skill just like Josh believes hard-counters, etc were poorly designed. "Pretty much all games get it wrong." Josh's game is no exception, it seems.

 

 

So who decides which feedback is worthwile to listen to? If you refer to josh, he also gave perfectly fine reasons why bestiary exp would work within his vision, so I don't see a problem there.

 

 

Regarding the lore skill:

I get your arguments, but you can apply these arguments for all the other skills as well, so why does lore deserve all the bashing? You can't use any skill directly in combat. Mechanics work only for traps before combat starts, stealth has a very limited use since you can only use it to initiate combat (if at all), athletics concerns only minor penalties you can probably deal with by proper resting and survival only effects potions. All of this is purely optional stuff you won't need to play through the game, so for combat purposes all skills are equally useless unless you want to actively use them.

Consequently, if you think that all skills in PoE suck, go ahead, that's fine with me.

However, regardless of how many playthroughs you do, you will always be able to use the skills outside of combat in conversations and scripted events, so dismissing them as useless is wrong. As I understood it, the vision was that they are supposed to define your character and help you play them outside of combat, the combat bonuses are just a little bonus on top and not supposed to be their defining quality.

 

 

Poopposting and saying "I WANT COMBAT XP WAH WAH WAH" is not good feedback. I already told you: no good arguments have been brought forth to convince Josh otherwise. He would have mentioned these if it was the case. I haven't seen any quotes from Josh saying why besiatry XP is good - only that they are considering it.

 

The lore skill dserves particular bashing because of its roles when it comes to playing the game several times and its complete irrelevance when dealing with meta-gaming: it is completely superfluous. It feels shoehorned in because there is creativity lacking in skill design. Trap-placing, lockpicking, stealth have particular relevance and value outside of strict combat as well as value in every iteration of the game that you play - you can't meta-game any of those things.  Yes, athletics isn't really a skill as much as it is a "perk" and I would agree that as it stands, it is also fairly weak. But again, it contains value with each gameplay. You will use that skill every time you start a new game. Lore does not have this value and is completely minimized with meta-gaming.

 

If I was to make the "lore skill" relevant, I wouldn't do what Josh and co are doing; with static enemies that have no stat changes from one game to the next. If lore is to actually be a worthwhile skill, randomization of enemy statistics/attack types/etc need to be implemented so that a player who actually invests in lore in EACH game, has something worthwhile to gain from that skill. Each game would have randomized elements that you can know by using the LORE skill and thus brining back value to the skill.

 

This is a difficult task and something I'm sure that unless they've planned for from the beginning would be too hard for them to design in at this point in the game. Going from their previous reasonings for how they design, they wouldn't even consider this solution. Instead, we'll be stuck with static enemy stats that any player who's played the game will know, completely nullifying the lore skill. And for the noobs who pick the lore skill, the rest of us "veterans" will laugh at them for picking the joke skill that nobody would actually pick. Thus, two huge design flaws in Josh's "most excellent design masterpiece of all-time." Trap (as in useless and trapping the new player) skills and the ability to play combat degenerately with 0 points in lore. Traps were why Josh went all crazy on making every attribute matter and a whole bunch of other contortions with the D&D recipe. Now he's reintroducing it again with Lore. 

Edited October 13, 2014 by Hormalakh

[Namutree]

I just cannot agree with you on this. The sheer fact that I played BG2 for more then 10 years without noticing level scaling is a proof in my eyes that BG2 system was perfect.

 

How does not noticing a feature make it perfect? Also, how the hell did play the game so much and not notice it?

 

Level scaling diminishes the reward of leveling up. Even in BG2 it can get so bad that sometimes it can actually punish you for leveling up. Not to mention how it screws up the difficulty. The only reason the level scaling in BG2 was merely a minor problem was that it was kept extremely minor until you reached a high level.

 

So, I'll reiterate. Level scaling if added sparsely doesn't matter except being a minor annoyance, and if added with a heavy hand it's game breaking. So, I would suggest OE avoid it.

 

Also, if you never noticed it; why do you even care if it's in the game?

[Guest 4ward]

Namutree, this is how i see it. Some greater side quests in BG2 were meant to be always a challenge, e.g. the cult of the unseeing eye or windspear dungeon. Since you could access those quests at the beginning of chapter 2 or in chapter 6 your party level would vary and to keep them a challenge you now would face beholders instead of gauths or higher werewolves instead of the normal ones. But as you already said yourself, it was only used scarcely and for the greater sidequests. You still would feel the game become easier with you levelling up since e.g. liches would now be beatable. That’s why I said I keep my fingers crossed for level-scaling because I also hope that PoE will be for the most part of the game non-linear and quests could be started in no particular order. As for the main quest if you do all quests and your party levels up high then also in my eyes it would scale for certain parts since it is about keeping up the difficulty as if it were if you didn’t do the majority of quests and progressed through the story at a lower level. You could now argue that you should be rewarded with an easier main story if you do all quests and this is a valid point. But for me, doing side quests is primarily for the fun and challenge of it and not necessarily for the main story becoming easier throughout. I won’t argue that some encounters should get easier for side quests and main story as you level-up.

[archangel979]

 

 

 

I just cannot agree with you on this. The sheer fact that I played BG2 for more then 10 years without noticing level scaling is a proof in my eyes that BG2 system was perfect.

 

How does not noticing a feature make it perfect? Also, how the hell did play the game so much and not notice it?

 

Level scaling diminishes the reward of leveling up. Even in BG2 it can get so bad that sometimes it can actually punish you for leveling up. Not to mention how it screws up the difficulty. The only reason the level scaling in BG2 was merely a minor problem was that it was kept extremely minor until you reached a high level.

 

So, I'll reiterate. Level scaling if added sparsely doesn't matter except being a minor annoyance, and if added with a heavy hand it's game breaking. So, I would suggest OE avoid it.

 

Also, if you never noticed it; why do you even care if it's in the game?

 

Because just like in PnP it makes the game more challenging and interesting. And unlike Oblivion and other bad level scaling examples it wasn't just higher level bandit with super mega cool equipment. Replacing Gauths with Beholders, adding a Lich or replacing Werewolves with Greater Werewolves is good, it is something a GM would do as well. Also since it wasn't being activated for each level you party had but at thresholds it was also good.

 

And let me repeat that it matters a lot since it keeps content challenging and not boring.

[archangel979]

BTW, I recently learned that PoE is not only one experimenting with changing health and healing mechanics. DAI will not have regenerating health but rest spots. It will also not have healing spells but only healing potions (and of limited carry capacity).