Importance of Meta-Gaming and Perfect Builds?

[Grump]

So now that I'm learning a bit more about PoE and the basics, I've started my third game now and bumped the difficulty up to hard.  Realizing I never got much farther than the stronghold portion, I'm reserving future judgement on how difficult the game will get (though Normal seems too easy for what I'm looking for).

 

My question, now, is (at the stage of game I'm playing) how detrimental will it be that I'm not using a perfect build for my character?  For roleplay reasons, I haven't spec'ed my built for optimization entirely (16, 8, 15,14, 14, 13) as a rogue, but I'm planning on taking a full 6-man party.  None of the characters will be re-trained because, for my strictly RP playthroughs, I feel that controlling the progression of other party-members so much is almost like power-gaming (though I have no issue doing this on subsequent playthroughs).

 

Using an RP-friendly build, with RP-centric party-members, will Hard give me much trouble during the entire play's lifespan?  Or is this game like IWD where you're almost expected to power-game to a certain degree?

[Cantousent]

Off hand, I would simply point out that IWD required you to build the party whereas the PoE design team included enough pre-made NPCs to join the PC in creating an entire party.  From what I've seen on hard (though not PotD yet), the game is pretty forgiving and you can get by without min-maxing or playing Munchkin (Oh how I hate that term) style.  Frankly, on hard at least, I don't even think you need to build your character super well to get by well enough, although you could conceivably build a character sufficiently poorly that you're hosed.  Let me be a bit more specific, a good player could take a poor character and win, but people who make poor character builds by accident tend to play those builds even worse than they build them.

 

I'll leave it to our more erudite members to give their input, but no matter what, come back and keep us updated about your progress.  :Cant's broad grin icon:

 

 

EDIT: always with forgetting a single word that changes the entire meaning.  :Cant's now *sheepish* grin icon:

[Teioh_White]

You should be just fine with the NPC char's in the game, especially on hard. If anything, the game seems balanced around thinking that's what you're rolling with. (For example, much of the Act 1 encounters seem based around only 4 people in a team, and are quickly steam rolled if using custom PC's to get up to 6).

 

From personal experience, I've cleared PotD plenty of times using only the NPC's, and they do just fine. (the only times I haven't were for joke things like 6x Rangers or Chanters). They won't be all stars like the min/maxed MC, but I've always just assumed in these games that's the MC's right as protagonist. Though, I've never let them auto level up...which actually could be interesting. It is fun working within constraints, so I think i'll give that a shot next time.

 

So, the mid range NPCs are fine, but I guess it could be an interesting idea to think of a custom team made -worse- than the NPCs could succeed. I guess that could go multiple ways of bad, first from party composition, to initial stat selection, to talent selection on level up, and finally to poor gear choices. Not sure how many layers we could go down before it just becomes untenable, if it ever reaches that point.

[Nobear]

Welcome to the forums!

 

Short answer: I second what the others have said about "perfect" builds (as far as stats) not mattering nearly as much as just about any other factor in your perception of difficulty or your success with PoE.

 

Also, I put "perfect" in quotes because, the more you play and read these forums, the more you will see so many different builds that can be debated and are still viable, to the extent that they match your play style. I've played the game extensively before the expansion, but have not yet played the expansion and found the rogue companion. However, the stats you mentioned for your rogue look at least as good as companion stats typically are, so absolutely viable in other words. 

 

For a longer answer with possibly helpful links, check out my response (post #2) to this thread.

[mosspit]

Small titbit of info - some of the premade NPCs do not have the total stat points (78) compared the ones you hire from the taverns. Some has more points but Zahua start with 3 less stat points, Devil has 2 less and Hiravias has 1 less. And ppl are still rampaging through the game with these NPCs.

Edited October 14, 2015 by mosspit