Hey all,

I've spent nearly 100 hours in the beta so far. I'm addicted to this game!

Just some thoughts on hybrid characters since the patch that changed skills to directly be affected by stats. Playing both before and after this patch, my conclusion is that hybrid characters are now useless when compared to non-hybrid characters. Perhaps useless is too strong of a word, but "not nearly as effective" would be accurate.

I do agree that before hybrid characters were overpowered - my Battlemage was a boss at melee and all the schools of magic. But now they are nerfed to the point where I don't see the use of them.

The skill penalties for doing a hybrid character (other than ranger/rogue who share Dexterity based skills) are massive. In the first few levels this isn't that noticeable, as getting 8 into a primary stat isn't that hard. But the next round of skills starts at stat 10. Lets take a battlemage for example. how are you going to maintain 10 int & 10 strength evenly all the time so you don't get penalties? I think you could, but by the time you do you'll have hit the next range of skills/spells then run into the same problem.

Then we have the skill penalty issue. I believe this is great for balancing - having no penalty on skill level for magic was an issue. But between the -20% effectiveness of skills or extra 2-3AP to use a skill, I don't see how hybrid characters are worthwhile vs a straight up mage, warrior, ranger, etc who not only get no penalties, but get skill boosts for high stats.

For example the wayfarer preset class is witch + rogue (I think.) In either case you start with only 7 dexterity. This gives you a 90% chance to cast your haste since you have a -10% penalty for low dexterity. My first fight I go to cast this, it "fumbles" since it has a 10% chance to fail. Maybe not such a big deal on low cd spells, but haste has a 20 turn cool down. So you either get it right, or don't use it in a fight at all. Of course you'll quickly get a point into dexterity making that particular spell fine, but the next range of spells will all have dex penalties if you focus on int, or vice versa.

Another example: The battlemage starts with both low int AND low str, so all her spells have penalties. I love that hybrid class the best (as an idea) but in practice it is no longer effective.

Just my thoughts. I know in traditional D&D you have penalties for hybrid characters. But this somehow seems too severe. I don't know what the solution is, other than giving you more stat points to spend. But that leads to other balance problems I guess.

What does everyone else think?

I'm fine with the restrictions, but I am an old AD&D head. This reminds of multi-classing. Like a Bards for instance, possibly the most overlooked build, but quite useful in many ways. The Bard is just not as good as a full class, but whilst he can shoot a magic missile or 2 and then heal you...then confuse the enemy ect, the Fighter just hits really hard. This class along with Rangers, Paladins were a nightmare to roll, soo many stat requirements.

So is it worth it? Sure if you are planning to build around your character, also realizing early on will most likely be known as the 'gimpy days'.

As far as O.S.'s approach, it seems appropriate. Some class combos could be really beefy, so this makes there reason to roll either way..one may just be tougher early.

This is all opinion, as you noted. To my mind, hybrid characters are jsut a different kind of challenge to play.

Hybrid characters will typically be underpowered compared to characters specialized either way, no question. With this approach, you'll be lagging behind on the set of skills you can use at peak efficiency, and that may mean you'll constantly feel underpowered against the current challenges in the game-as-released. (NWN via D&D made me want to say original campaign.)

If you're into role-playing, then versatile but underwhelming is just another approach. It certainly makes you think more about tactics, which this game encourages.

The fact that you have at least a party of two also means you can compensate to some extent for any given character's weaknesses.

Dunno, on my full play through of the beta, for the main chars I had one warrior and one hybrid - Shadowblade and the Shadowblade ended up being more versatile and powerful than any of my companions or warrior, just depends on how you build your hybrid I guess.

Having one hybrid as a utility char also seemed to help rather than wasting ability and talent points better spent on "main" stats for your non hybrids. At least for me.

On my playthough I rolled a Rogue/Priest combo. Though my rogue was more akin to an 'Arcane Trickster'(D&Dsubclass) ..So a rogue with magic capabilities, or hybrid if you will. This worked out fine, I found telekinesis to be invaluable, using barrels at will on mobs made for differing tactics all together. The priest was mainly there as a help early on, meatshield/healbot.

It's all about the items.

Str 10/Int 10 requires an initial investment of 15 points, plus 2 from levelling up, plus a further 3 from items. It's tough, but by no means impossible as my gf's battlemage can attest.

On top of this, sometimes you don't need to be super specialised in multiple attributes, having a chance to fail is a cost and believing hybrid chars are no good simply because you failed a 10% chance one time is no different to having a 100% chance and failing because of their saving throws.

Also, don't use the presets - they're for people wanting to rush in. Make your own character and run with that before deciding the presets determine everything.

Hopefully I've been unlucky, but I find +str+int too common, in pairs too, versus say +dex+int or +str+dex.

I don't use any of the presets, I only did my first run or two. But a lot of new and/or unfamiliar players are going to be using the presets, so that's why I brought it up since that's how the devs have tuned it.

I am one of those "peak efficiency" players so the hybrid penalties annoy me :P

Saving throws do happen, but I've yet to fail a 100%-120% spell on enemies of my level. Higher level enemies or boss type characters always have high defenses. But in the average fight all my spells work.

What doesn't work is when I only have a 50-80% of something working. It is true a 100% spell can fail due to a saving throw, but at least it actually casts. I have more of an issue with self-casting spells like Water of Life, Become Air or the Rogues haste. They can fail to cast in a combat scenario (if you have low stats for the skill) and that's difficult to handle.

my opinion is that I agree with the restrictions. Hybrids should be hard and take a penalty

you can certainly dabble but one should not expect to master more than a couple

How do you avoid a preset class?

Here, I made some screenshot guides, just look at image 1/2/3

Divinity Edit Screens

Shorter version?

Pick a preset and then edit it.

Cherry picking is definitely possible but I find it favors mage hybrids most. I stack int and speed, and just work around the limited dex/str.

I use the stance that give a large +to hit bonus when I want to melee things, thus I don't need high strength just to dish out some physical damage. I can also buff chance to hit some more with Bless. Also, lucky charm increases chance to hit to a small degree. And with haste + high speed, that makes up for the boosted AP cost/lower damage to some degree. Not that I often need to deal physical damage but it's nice having the option.

I also use a small selection of man-at-arms, scoundrel, marksman skills that are useful regardless of str/dex level - the warrior's rush for example, while it doesn't knock-down much with low str, is a good mobility tool nonetheless. The warrior heal still heals for a lot without high str, I use it as a bigger/long CD heal in emergencies when my other heals are on CD or whatever. Having the extra haste from a single point spent in scoundrel is also nice.

You understand why your definition of no good is misleading, because it's a personal choice over a gaming perspective. If you'd said "I don't like the fail chance for hybrids" we'd be inclined to agree, especially as it's 10% below but 5% above the target number (meaning you don't really need your attribute higher in some cases.

Let's say you're doing int 8 dex 7 start to use some scoundrel stuff on your air nuker. The penalty is only until your dex hits 8, which it can by the time you hit level 3. Now you can go invisible, be hasted without failure, on top of smacking them in the face with a blitz bolt. Come level 7 - hopefully you find a +1 int neck or suit of leather armor and your further +1 attribute is giving you 10 int 8 dex. So on top of a lightning strike or teleporting foes away, you've got a personal haste, invisibility OR if a foe gets too close, smack em with a rogue charm (level 4 ability).

Sure, you might not get to use level 7 scoundrel spells right away, but the cost is less than you make it out to be!

My rogue/witch is much more powerful than any of my other characters.

His normal rotation is, blind, haste, invis - move behind an enemy (normally the mob with highest hp) +50%more dmg buff on himself, then backstab. 1-2 turns later that mob is dead. Non of my other characters can move that fast while invis and then kill something within 2 turns.

I only made my ranger a minor hybrid by taking 1 point in geomancer to be able to summon a spider. I took one point out of dex at character creation for int and then only ever increased her int through items.

My 2H warrior i kept purely as a warrior. I wanted her to off heal in bad situations but the warrior heal is powerful and does the job fine. I wanted the ranger reposition ability on her, but phoenix dive does that just fine so no need to hybrid.

It's a fact that hybrid characters are different. They can do various things, but nothing too good. You want that your character can do more things, you have to accept that she/he will never be such strong in one of ways than a single class character. Something for something. This is simply realistic.

The main change I would like to see is self-buffs not being X% chance due to low str/dex/int. Save that for offense. That way you can use the myriad of magic buffs on any character without random failure should you choose.

Also, spells that affect the environment rather than enemies should not need int to be effective either. With the game's elemental system all characters should be able to have some elemental control.

Might need some other changes to balance that, like having to specialize more into specific magic schools - I've gotten away with only a single point in each for a long time with no issue.

An alternative could be talents that allow you to use Int/Dex/Str to determine the success of more skills. You wouldn't get the boosted damage, and you'd trade a talent for it. This is a nice balance, as it doesn't spread you too thin like trying to split between two of these stats does currently.

Also I think many of the Marksman, Scoundrel, Man-At-Arms abilities need lower cooldowns, mages have so much more diversity of short/mid/long CD options. I can drop rain down and spam 1 CD attacks that have a high chance of electrocuting or freezing enemies.

Midnight oil is also a little bit of an overpowered crutch right now IMHO. Basically anything melee doesn't get to be a threat because it has to move through a burning oil field to reach my two mages. It carried me pretty hard through the early game - hard difficulty w/two lone wolf mages.

I do think we need better low level spell/ability options as well, I'd like to be able to choose 5 or 6 not just 3, and of a larger variety. Right now it's a no brainer choosing midnight oil and flare because the others just don't compete and some don't even have real offensive spells - no option for hydro damage at all, and the geo spell is poison which is useless against the very common undead.

Last but not least, I am not sure how archers are going to ever be a consideration over mages if they have to manage a resource but aren't really any more powerful at ranged damage to make up for added tediousness.

I agree to this. Many of the non-mage skills have 10-20 turn cool downs. A lot of the mage stuff is way lower. You'd think it would be the other way around since mages have it easier already.



It can be a crutch, but pyro magic is in general. As a test I intentionally avoided it last play through. It made things harder, but fights just took longer since I couldn't fill combat with giant burning fields of death.

Alternately you can still get midnight oil and just have a mage fire staff that you attack the oil with. Though that's still cheating a tiny bit if you're trying to go without pyro.



I agree, but on another hand it makes sense - the spells mirror the leaving system somewhat in the 3/4/7/10 vein. It would be nice to have them more spread out though. It's a long wait between level 4 & 7 sometimes.

Mostly I'm just annoyed that the majority of the spells vendor sell are spells you CAN'T use yet. I'm level 3 or 4 and looking for things like ice shard, or bless, but no, it wants to give me 90% level 7 or 10 spells. so I have to wait forever just to get the spells for my level. I find this silly as I've gone some playthroughs not getting a low level spell until I'm level 7 or 8. And this is with consistently checking the vendors every time I'm in town.

Perhaps this is just a downside to RNG. Before they had the vendors selling too many duplicate spell books, but at least you could find the spells you wanted a lot more consistently. Now I find it hard to do.



Rangers are actually really powerful. I was skeptical at first, but I ran a mage/ranger combo and found it very effective. They start a bit slow (like warriors) but become pretty epic. My level 7 ranger rushed Marksman 5, so he has the 3AP bow talent. Since he has such high perception he starts combat with 12 AP, so he can fire 4 times. (his recovery AP is good as well.) With 100% chance to hit and a 25% crit chance, he crits often. And with an elemental bow (common at that level) you can do all kinds of cool effects for free, electrocute water, set fire to people, chance to bleed, blind, curse, burn, etc.

I was at first annoyed that elemental arrows cost as much as a spell book, but were a one time use rather than a permanent fixture. But between your ability to craft your own on the cheap (about 150g) and the arrow recovery talent, and that there's lots of arrows around in the world (especially the orc beach) I found I had a great supply of special arrows.

Whatever the case, mages tend to attack once or twice max per turn. My ranger could generally eliminate an enemy every turn with 3-4 regular arrows, and use special arrows as needed. They offer other uses as well since they have a lot of cure spells for all the various diseases, crippling effects and poison. And you gain a mute spell for mages later on too. Neat stuff.

Lastly between the high dex and a possible dodge talent you are very hard to hit. Their survivability is quite strong through stats (and/or a talent) without the need for defensive spells. Magic of course still hits you, but physical attacks would miss very often on my ranger.

OP describes how a hybrid is in this game vs a pure bred and that is exactly how hybrids are supposed to work. You surrender high-end #'s with more versatility in what you can do move to move. I've found I like the versatility over the best possible #'s most of the time. Why? Because for me many times in battle the best move isn't your pure classes move, but something else. If Hybrids were just as strong plus the versatility, there would be no use for pure breds. Not sure what the issue is here?

For example something simple like everyone having the Teleport spell is highly tactical and powerful with simply a single point. The penalties doesn't make a skill useless if you can't get to the pre-req.

/this! very much so.

I come in on the other side of the spell buying issue. I don't want my spells to all come from a vendor. I think there should be a very small number of highly random spells available on the vendor and most of them should have to come from adventuring in the world. Learning your spells from an ancient crypt or an enemy sorcerer's tower is the type of immersion I'm looking for out of my mage experience.

I could not agree less. Terrible idea.

Path of Exile has a similar system, and it's probably the weakest and most annoying part of the game. Being forced to only use one or two skills - with no recourse - because the RNG hasn't dropped one you actually want is really annoying.

That's been my experience as well in D:OS, except that it's WORSE here, because combat is difficult, and you need to make use of your available skills to manage it. Not being able to get some that you can afford, and that you can use perfectly well - because the RNG doesn't like you is exasperating.

The idea of quests to get your skills might be fun the first two times, but eventually, people will think "Oh for ****'s sake, I just want to get Skill X for my character, do I have to do Dopey's Dimwitted Dungeon AGAIN just for this one skill?

No reason why these two can't work together - you can buy random "low level" skillbooks from vendors, but you can find rare ones while adventuring - just like rare/legendary items.

No reason at all, except the random nature of the merchant's stock makes it difficult - and very frustrating to pick up the low- and mid-level skills that are the basics of a character build.

Effectively, this game mechanic currently makes it quite unlikely that a given character will be able to develop into the one the player wants to play.

This irks a lot of people, me included.

Excessively random generation of epic spell/skill books only as loot would likely put the same damper on the endgame.

If that's the kind of game Larian wants to produce, OK. It's their game. But it will be a game that disappoints a lot of players, and therefore not a long-lived or favorite game for those players.

Basic marketing.

Can we file some kind of official request to change the skill/spellbook thing in vendors to have more current level books? I feel like it would help and in theory isn't that big of a tweak on Larians end.

I think it's been suggested elsewhere already, but +1

Right now, vendor skillbooks are generated through merchant/treasure generation (i.e. random). Last I heard, I think Larian were considering making some something specific for skill books to be less random. I don't know if they'll follow up on that, or if they do, whether it'll make it in for the release.

Since areas within the world are level based, then it should be fairly easy to make it so Cyseal vendors have spell books requiring character level 1-7 e.g., and then Silverglen could have 7-12 and so on. Then they could just unlock all books for the appropriate character levels wihtin each area.
Another way is to allow the unlocked Elemental areas in End of Time to have at least 1 of all spell books, maybe at an additional cost to make up for the availability.

Regarding the whole hybrid class thing, I think hybrids are really strong. I ran a Ranger/Water/Earth/Witch and Knight/Air/Fire combo last playthrough, which is a lot of combinations. It was quite tough early on, but after level 6 no matter the fight, I always had an appropriate respons from both characters whereas Madora as a pure warrior often was locked out of the combat due to bad placement of fire, poison and the like.

My only problem with hybrid characters right now is the Ability level requirement on gear, where Strength based weapons and armor require at least 2+ more ability points that a Dexterity or Intelligence based item of equal item level. This design choice is simply something I don't understand, I find it very odd that mages and rogues/rangers can use items dropping of a monster their own level, but warriors are required to wait 2-3 levels before they can use their items (unless they are not hybrid ofcourse). Whether it should be one way or the other, it should be equal between the different ability classes in my opinion.

Path of Exile is a completely different game.

This is just more power gamer mentality. The whole point of the game is that your character isn't just a product of planning. That you cannot decide what you get to do at every juncture of the game because you are subject to the whims of fate.

It's a modern concept that you are handed everything on a silver platter. Maybe in your game world some of the low level spells weren't researched by any of the common town mages so you have to go exploring.

Of course you don't like it because you want to completely plan out your game experience before it even happens. The ability to accept randomness and entropy in your roleplaying game is the key to immersion. When everything is planned out ahead of time then you already know the outcome.

Part of the replayability and challenge of the combat can be using the resources you have available to solve it. Not using the resources you choose to have in order to solve the tactical problem.

From a design perspective the second they have fixed/controlled spell vendor lists is the moment they might as well just let you choose when you level up. Fundamentally they're the same concept with just a small gold barrier in the way.

Just see a very pervasive mentality of players wanting everything to be completely fixed with no real dynamism to the gameplay experience. Enjoy the game as it happens, not in your head before it's even happened.

I agree with this. I'm okay with randomly generated treasures and even some shop stock to an extent, but I want to reliably be able to get my hands on the skills I want. A large part of the enjoyment I get out of games like D:OS is being able to call upon a large variety of skill combinations, and the tedium sets in rapidly when I'm forced to rely on one or two skills for an extended period.

Controversial as it is to say, this is why I actually enjoyed Diablo 3 quite a bit. Nearly every level rewards the player with a new skill or variation of an older skill to play with. D:OS doesn't need to go nearly that far to please me, but I do want a consistent and reliable increase to my skill repertoire without relying too much (or frankly, at all) on the RNG.

So what? A) It's relevant, because it uses the same skill system you're championing, and I have experience with that skill system. B) I also directly complained about the semi-random merchant inventory that THIS GAME has.




What a load of bull. This isn't an argument - it's absolute nonsense.

The point of the combat is to be difficult and require planning and tactics. To make you think about what the best moves are and try and pull them off.

How can you say that the point of the game is that you are subject to the whims of fate when literally the point of the game is that you have a boatload of freedom to choose what to do, to the point that you can murder your way through the game and still finish it.




That makes no logical sense. It's also something which would rapidly get really annoying. And don't sneer and look down your nose at me as "not old-school enough".




This is just more nonsense. There is literally zero wrong with wanting to plan out a character. You're making up a hell of a lot of crap about "what I want" and you don't even know me at all.

I really want the AI personalities in EXACTLY BECAUSE it adds a random element you can't predict.




So spending my limited gold resource to pick a skill to fill my limited skill slot resource (which is expanded through my limited ability point resource), and then deciding which skill to use with my limited Action Point resource doesn't count. Seems Legit.

(Duhhhhh...)




I can't believe you actually wrote those words down. It's unbelievable. That is so dumb that it speaks for itself.




So unless I enthusiastically endorse completely random merchant skill selection, and tediously repetitive questing for skills (also random?), I'm a drooling drone who wants everything to happen the same way every time. Beep Boop.

Don't project your ludicrous strawmen arguments onto other people.




Larian has confirmed that certain (presumed high-level) spellbooks will NOT be available through vendors, but only through questing. I just object to the idea of low-medium level ones only being available through questing.

What can you do, Stabbey?

Erra is just another in a the chain of didactic, pretentious *ahem*. You can't argue with them: they know better already.

Since you require things to be spelled out. It doesn't use the same skill system I'm championing at all because you can quest on different character types to acquire specific skills that you need. It's actually very fixed and everything but a very select few skills are attainable without randomization at all. It's also a multiplayer game with interplayer trading inherently available.

I, too, have experience with POE. Being that I've played through the game on three separate occasions at various times in its' development. An action rpg system where almost all of the skill gems can be acquired by making alts and questing for them. The only focus of that game is gear/power gaming. There is no roleplaying focus to that game. It's a completely nonsensical comparison.




Because you are a rigid linear thinker. You believe that you should be able to have the freedom to plan every minute detail of your character before he even exists. You don't even know the complete spell lists in the game but you are complaining about specific spells that aren't available...only because you know they exist and want them. You are greedy for one specific thing you know you're capable of doing.

What you fail to understand is that part of the challenge is resource deprivation...or utilizing the resources the game world gives you via randomness and making the best of the situation. You're always guarenteed to get access to some spells of the schools your character knows. What you are not guarenteed are which ones they will be. So then each time you play the game you can approach different fights at different times of the game with different availale skills and find new ways to solve the problem. You say 'best moves'...but it's the best moves YOU CAN LOCATE IN THE GAME WORLD. Not the best moves you dreamed of three months before you even played. That's not even roleplaying at all. You might as well not even play if you already know how you want to finish all the fights.

You want to have ALL of the tools available to you for ALL of the fights on -YOUR- terms rather than playing the game and reacting to the situations available to you.

More significantly is the fact that with a very open game system you could just give yourself all the spells you want and not change the core gameplay model of an immersive dynamic world for other individuals. You want the game world to reflect your vision of a perfectly planned ideal without any concept of how changing it to suit your vision would disrupt the enjoyment of adapting to the unknown.

I get it: You don't like the unknown. You aren't a dynamic thinker. You are a rigid, linear player that wants to know his solutions before the problems even present themselves. You don't want to have to think on your feet.

I do. I want the game to be dynamic and present me with problems. I'd love if my mage gets access to shit spells from the town vendor and I have to make do for awhile until I grow more powerful. Maybe I'll have to rely more on my coop partner, perhaps I'll have to rely more on my companion because my power spike hasn't occurred.

You don't want those dynamic situations in your game...but you also don't want them in ANYONE's game. You had one vision for the way the game could be played.

The difference is if you remove dynamism there's no way to simulate it by editing the character. You can always simulate giving yourself a complete spell list by editing your character.



I didn't say there was anything wrong with wanting to plan your character out. But being upset that there are factors in your development that are out of your control shows plenty about you and what you want. You are clearly very frustrated because you had a specific idea and want all of the spells to do those and yet when you cannot you demand that it be 'fixed'. You assume it is a problem and not a feature.

You never once attempted to think of the situation from another perspective: What would my character do in this situation. He surely wouldn't know that spell exists as they're just beginning to study magic. Most likely they would continue on their path and utilize the skills they have to accomplish their goals in the game world.

AI personalities have no bearing on pre-planned character development. That's just a strawman you cited in order to try and distract from your controlling personality.



You definitely showed you're a child here. You acknowledge that many other features of the game design incorporate the concept of limited resources but still pretend that the one you don't enjoy should be changed.

More significantly is that all of them have solutions. If you're limited by gold...acquire it. If you're limited by ability points...level up, take a talent...if you're limited by action points...wait a turn, level up, invest in speed/perception/con gear.

If you're limited by your spell selection...expand to other schools, explore for new spells, perhaps find another vendor later in the game that sells the spells you want?

There are solutions to all of the challenges in the game. You just don't care for this challenge so want the developers to remove it from your path and therefore reduce the emergent narratives for other people. Inherently selfish thought processes.



Insulting too. Perhaps you believe that gold is actually a limiting factor in what you do? That's rather shortsighted. It's just another barrier that can be overcome with some work. Do a job for someone, sell some of your valuables. Acquire the items you want.

It doesn't push you out into the world. If all of the spells are available from a vendor in a static, fixed list it is fundamentally identical to just picking them as you level up...actually it's inferior because there's no risk involved.

The whole point is so not all of your characters growth is determined by a static list you just click and buy. Push you into emergent experiences.



This isn't a strawman in this situation. Your statements are quite clear: You do not enjoy anything which forces you to deviate from a fixed plan of character development which you decided to prior to playing the game. Your statements, your words, your bitter language shows your character quite clearly. You do not handle being told no very well...and you want the authority to fix it. You -demand- that they do.

Repetitive questing? It's very unlikely you'll even get many spellbooks as quest rewards. That's not really the best path. Go explore a mage's tower or an ancient tomb. Venture off the beaten path. Maybe discover another vendor later in the game.

I didn't create your mentality. I just pointed out the rigid thought processes you express in your demands to have any barrier to your preplanned experience stripped away and thus ruin emergent narrative for others.




OBJECT. OBJECT. You show your mentality right there. You object to the idea. Is this the court and you're the lawyer? That's ridiculous. You still haven't given a cognizant argument of the narrative experiences that develop from having fixed spell lists?

There are none.

What about the way it helps low level combat...

Oh it doesn't help low level combat because then it allows people to already know how they'll tackle encounters before they've even created their characters.

Everything about having non fixed spell acquisition helps the game become a more personal experience.

The only issue is that it threatens individuals who demand complete control over their character's every tiny development. These are the individuals that would sacrifice others' enjoyment in order to get the experience they want. An experience that you could replicate by editing your character files for the spells you want.

It's unfortunate you had to resort to such insulting language and attempting to call me dumb because you're such a rigid, linear thinker. I hope you can consider the idea of emergent narrative more closely. It sure seems like you've never played a 4x game, X-com, or any of the classic PNP inspired RPG's this game is based on. Least of all Ultima VII which this game is heavily inspired by...

Perhaps you should trust the people who have played those games and know that the random experiences are what cement them as your own.

Good luck.

I'm sorry do you have an issue with me?

Why not try to argue my points in a cohesive manner and explain to me how fixed spell lists improve the narrative, immersive, and tactical gameplay experience.

It's not about -knowing- better through magical knowledge. It's about logical analysis based on past experiences. It's about having experienced both modes of operation and having seen which one creates a more compelling experience.

It's having been both the person that power games from level 1-20 knowing every single thing my character will do and having roleplayed completely with no power concerns at all.

There's a balance to be struck. Even as a power gamer you should perhaps examine that knowing everything about your potential before you hit the game world dulls the experience and lessens the emergent narrative.

Pretentious huh? I'm pretty sure there's nothing pretentious about emergent narrative. Quite the opposite. The entire idea is accepting entropy and going with the flow. Pretention is going on a board and demanding one aspect of a game be changed because you don't enjoy how it blocked your plans without articulating the opposite side of the argument or even acknowledging there is one.

I'll take Didactic. Not sure why anyone would consider that an insult. If anything the inability to engage in complex discussions about the efficacy of various skill acquisition decisions on player experience and emergent narrative should worry you. Expand your mind, don't close it off because of new ideas.

If you want an example of someone looking at game balance: The individual who found that TK objects can one shot enemies AND some enemies are immune had the best evaluation. He wants it to still be plausible on all enemies but do far less damage. That's an individual who sees something cause a barrier/incentive at the same time and doesn't try to close off the option to others...while also wanting to reduce the incentive to exploit.

This here is just an attempt to restrict others experiences because of a barrier. Barriers are meant to be overcome within gameplay...not by petitioning the developers.

I feel like neither of you have played Path of Exile enough to know how you are meant to actually play it. And that is entirely the fault of the way Path of Exile is designed, it's a game that i personally play but would never recommend to a new player because of how incredibly obfuscated everything is.

You ARE meant to completely plan out nearly every aspect of your character before you make a build in that game. The game is all about trading. You have to overcome things like RNG by trading. Same goes for the vast majority of your gear. Using currency to actually craft your items will screw you over unless you know EXACTLY what you are looking for and know you can get it within relatively few orbs, or you are rich. You must hoard your currency.

Another thing, you're both wrong about how many gems are drop only in PoE. There are VERY few skill and support gems that are not obtained from quests, and gem quest rewards are not randomized whatsoever. Out of the 172 (soon to be 174) standard skill gems in the game, 6 of them are drop-only.

PoE is a game that requires you to do a ton of research on to play effectively or to even begin to know what you're doing. I honestly would say to avoid using it as a comparison unless you have a VERY large amount of experience with the game, because things in that game are usually not what they seem on the surface.

I said this exact same thing. And considering I tested flicker strike when it was still a ridiculously broken skill with no cooldown that made you invincible and had a fully planned out build then I'm well aware how the game works (It also almost gave me epilepsy from the constant repositioning). Which is why I refuted him bringing the game up at all; it's simply not comparable in any way.

As a numbers based gear oriented story lite experience the game hook IS the power gaming and character planning. It's simply not comparable to a game which is focusing on emergent narrative and interactivity in an immersive world.

And I even cited your exact point: You can quest for all of the gems on alts if you need them.

Weird that you didn't read that but still wanted to include me in your point though...

EDIT: Oh I see what happened. That got cut off when I was posting it. Looks pretty sloppy, let me go fix that.

Skills are not gear.

By allowing skillbooks to be random for such a limited selection of skills, it doesn't improve gameplay but detracts from it. If you create a character with the intention of being a fire mage - and suddenly find you cannot ever find fire elemental, you're incredibly weak (but playable).
If you plan the same character as a lightning mage but cannot obtain blitz bolt... you're useless.

The random attitude of vendors concerning skillbooks is a poor one simply because there are only what, 4 spells per level? So it's not like a DnD Wizard who cannot learn fireball because he'd have acid splash, lightning bolt and cone of cold (sure, CoC is level 4 not 3 but you get the point). This game's spell list does not create alternatives within a specific tree. Without key spells you are so weak you're unable to play what you intended to.

Were there more skills per level, with choices (imagine if there were 3 1 turn cd fire spells spread between levels 1 and 4 giving options... you'd only need to find 1 of them).

So yeah, I can agree it'd be nice to have some random skill find, except skills are not treasure... skills are no different to talent points. Being unable to choose them is not fun, regardless of whether it's fun to discover them in the world.

Do you know there are only that many skills per level or is that something that people are assuming based on incomplete spell lists. Not a single person has claimed to have data mined spells.

Why aren't skills treasure? Everything is treasure. They utilize AP to accomplish goals exactly like special arrow types for an archer character. You choose your basic attack types at the beginning (Presumably you chose one without a cooldown to have a repeat ability similar to a basic attack) and you have a staff ranged attack to fall back on. Then you acquire them like treasure.

It's not fun to you. I disagree in that it's fun for me to discover them in the world as an emergent narrative. It's easier for you to manipulate the game to have all the spells than it is for me to replicate random acquisition. That's the goal...to allow for those who enjoy an unscripted experience to not be forced into going to the vendor and saying 'oh...that's all my spells I'm going to get for the next 25 hours of gameplay....fun?'

This is a beta discussion, and should information change then obviously a smart person is aware that opinions and statements will change accordingly. So for now, we can be safe in the knowledge there are no more spells.

Comparing skills to treasure would indicate that the weapon you have will affect the actions you can take within combat, this is seriously unlikely. If you have fireball, you can do something different than if you have fire elemental. However if you have a sword with +1 single handed, it will not function differently to a sword with 8% crit and 15% stun. Sure, you may act differently, but you cannot perform a different action by lieu of the stunsword.

By placing an emphasis on skills as treasure you are indicating you would prefer the randomness, but that only leads to games where you never find the spells you need for your character to play as your character - imagine finding 8 geomancer skillbooks when you intended on using a pyro/aero caster with a ranger? By allowing too much RNG to creep into gameplay you actually reduce the likelihood to enjoy the game.

To take it further, how much randomness do you want in your gameplay Erra? Are you going to random your starting characters? How you spend your points? Which option you take in game? Or are you going to do what you want and spend things exactly how you wish to? Because I'm not clear on just how you feel random skillbooks are enjoyable over, say, ending up with your starting characters putting 2 into pickpocket and 1 into 3 different weapon focuses with a 10 perception?

But obviously the above point is only relative once you understand skills are not treasure, which they're not.

I'm not going to dignify your nonsense with any more of my time.

I'm not saying you don't make some valid points here and elsewhere, but it's not very pleasant to try and argue them when you immediately jump to judgments of character. You've called people selfish, rigid thinkers, power gamers, said they've wanted everything on a silver platter, mistook the intensity of their arguments, said they want to disrupt the intent of the game, hate dynamism, and so on for expressing what are really perfectly reasonable and mild opinions.

The fact is that probably everyone here is an established gamer, a good portion of us have played a variety of the classics, and we've learned what we do and don't like in our video games. And we've come here to discuss what we would like to see changed in D:OS partly because we've every right to and partly because Larian has *asked* us to. That doesn't make any of us selfish or inflexible any more than it makes you selfish and inflexible for wanting something different than us. We're all paying for this game and it's therefore entirely reasonable of us to want it to cater to our individual desires while acknowledging and accepting necessary compromise.

So please, dial it back a bit. You have a valid and valuable perspective to add to this discourse and there's no reason it needs to be marred and ignored due to hostile accusations and unnecessary attacks of character.

That. What Zozma said. Thank you for your articulate and patient answer.

Erra, I apologize for the personal attack, for judging your responses from your starting tactics, and for venting my cumulative impatience with you and several other people all at you. I should not have made that post. I should maybe have made this one instead.

You ask why I didn't answer your specific points as though that were the only possible subject of discussion. At least you aren't tone-policing me for rudely calling out rudeness, for which thanks.

Your viewpoint is your own; you have a perfect right to it; the conversation would probably be interesting if I were willing to accept and engage with your charming approach to discussion. I'm not. (Some others here seem to be. More power to them.)

You have:

• replied to disagreement with aggression and insult
• taken your premises and analysis as absolutes
• caged the discussion to your conclusions and your statements of opinion-as-fact
• twisted responses and argued with your own version instead.

All of these points are classic tactics of dishonest argument. I'm in a glass house on the first point, granted. That doesn't make it any less true in your case.

There's been a steady stream of this kind of crap from several people here in the last month. I'm tired of it. I'm annoyed enough for other reasons that I suck at ignoring it. Pity me. Whatever. None of that has to mean anything to you; I expect it doesn't.
Which said:

• If you follow what I'm saying, and you really want a conversation, please knock it off.
• If you can't or don't want to follow, I expect I could quote specifics all day long and you would just shift the grounds and your argument to avoid acknowledging your behavior. If I'm doing you a disservice here I owe you an apology, but I doubt it. History suggests not.
• If you just don't give a damn, or this is how you amuse yourself, then you just carry right on. As though you needed my permission.

This is also didactic, btw. You asked. This is the best I can do. My bad.

But you don't seem tired of Stabbey spewing out the same crap, since the beginning of the alpha, do you? To me his "what a load of crap", "that's a ridiculous idea for any game to have" and others are on the same page with erra's "dishonest argumentation."

This is a rhetorical question.

Yes, I've been harsh and a jerk at times. That's true. People called me out on it, and since then I've tried to be better, hold my tongue, phrase things in a less confrontational way, make better arguments based on reason. If you've got something to say to me, say it to me.

Therefore you loose the argument vehemently. And laughably.

Btw, she, or he is right and you are completely wrong.
All of your "argument", which is just a long ranting complaint coming from the crying mentality approach to the game - is very similar, if not actually exactly the same as all that crying and complaining about running into a few early enemies using poison clouds that killed your characters - WHILE YOU repeatedly refused to ADAPT your tactics and USE THE AVAILABLE resources to increase the poison resistance.





Which is another personal attack, judging the responses from what you imagine and strawman in as "someones tactics" while using these pathetic cheap tactics yourself - while spewing accusations you invent - and venting various psychological traumas and angst, deeply distorted by false arrogance coming from ignorance.

So... things as usual, eh Pete?




No, thats what you are doing - very blatantly, directly point by point - while you are trying to accuse someone else of it.

Psychological projection at most direct display.

I also prefer the random spells provided at vendors.
If they are just going to make all the spells available at each vendor, then why not just make it a UI screen where I choose the exact skill I want.

Just because my char wants to be a fire mage does not mean that the world and the skill vendors should make this an easy path. If my char cant find fire spells, then they will have to search harder or re-evaluate their path.

And for people who do want to plan out all their character's skills, the editor should make it very simple to achieve this.

He wasn't making an argument, he was just making up a bunch of unfounded dime-store psychoanalysis crap because I DARED to disagree with him.

And learn to spell 'lose' properly.



Your arguments were ridiculous then and they still are now, since the point was "hey, maybe an attack which has the tankiest character getting basically one-hit killed from full health, while also being an AoE which can hit multiple chars is doing a bit too much damage!"

I did adapt my tactics, if you bothered to remember. That doesn't mean that there was not a problem.

Your claim of the solution being "USE THE AVAILABLE RESOURCES" is inherently contradictory with erra "being completely right", since erra's idea is to arbitrarily make resources (in the form of skills) not available because random is awesome.

Additionally, the poisoncloud arrow issue is a pretty odd example to use in defense of erra. Your said it was fine to leave it as it was, because all you had to do was make sure that your characters equipment and supplies were focused around food and equipment that offered poison resistance. That reminds me of erra's dislike for a rigid, inflexible approach to solving problems.

Thanks for demonstrating my point, Hiver.

I thought you were ignoring me?

Maybe want to do that some more? Here: I'll reciprocate. Buh-bye.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axcU-jlHGao

So from the research my friend and I have done you believe that all spells have been found when there aren't even recorded instances of a single level 5 spell for some schools? Being that we saw 25% of the content in the world and it's been factually stated spells at the highest level could be quest only... it is a logical conclusion that all spells have NOT in fact been found.

So you already have displayed in your arguments that you lack complete information and make logical conclusions based on false information to suit your purposes. This lack of conclusive, exhaustive self auditing is why my language seems so harsh.

Your other points are equally spurious and contain the same amount of linear thinking as your fictitious assertion above. No need to independently disprove them...I'd suggest you think in a nonlinear way about a line of code that could solve your geomancer for an aeromancer problem...maybe weighted loot tables dependent on skill choice. Probability is just a number.


As for the amount of randomness I want? Enough to make the experience feel emergent but not random? So like in the current systems while there are many developments which are random in WHEN you come across them they're still likely to occur within the game given a thorough exploration of the features. Even then it's plausible certain items you may never encounter with a paucity of fixed loot. These sort of what we would call 'tertiary' details are the types of things that should be random.

Class skills being random is as I said an affectation of emergent narrative. The concept here is that while all the skills are indeed available the unplannable nature of that development keeps the player on his toes. It means that even if you are a metagamer you are still presented with challenges and barriers to your playstyle. Things to overcome.

What's endlessly challenging as a game designer is finding ways to challenge all of your players. Ways that you can thwart their attempts to exploit your resource deprivation (You know the classic reloading shops to get what you want through any means necessary). And then part of the experiment is to see how far they're willing to go and how much they'll react to losing control over the situation.

Skills are treasure in this game. They're objects within the world outside of the initial ones you receive as a remnant of your characters beginning training. You have only -decided- on that conclusion based on a preconceived notion as to how games operate...unfortunately this game has chosen to operate in a fashion that will be providing you with new challenges.

Awesome. Now I disagree with someone on what "rhetorical" and "question" mean, too. Better and better.

Let me clarify the part that "I" "seem" to have miffed you about.

Stabbey is pretty damn blunt with opinions, and can be an ass when provoked. Same with me. Same, apparently, with you.

But I haven't seen Stabby do any of these things, unlike some I could name:

• dive straight into frothing attack mode at the first hint of disagreement.
• insist on escalating things when the provocation stops.
• condescendingly explain to other people how they think, what they want, and that their idea of fun is wrong.

And over the time period I can comment on - wasn't here for the alpha - Stabbey's contributed a *hell* of a lot of information, perspective and constructive ideas to the discussion to balance the occasional bullshit. Way more than you, I or Erra, that's for sure.

Erra launched into the noise right off the bat.
Stabbey met fire with fire.

You can tell me those are the same thing all you want, of course. This not being Fox News, and you not being Bill O'Reilly (probably) nobody's gonna cut the mike for you as soon as you're done shouting, so I don't have to look like I'm convinced.

Raze can get tired of the crap again and shut us all down, of course, which would pretty much be justified at this point.

Glamour: yeah. Guilty. Good call.

The spells and skills which remain unknown in the game are higher level ones, not dropped or sold by anything in Cyseal. Nothing we've been told or learned suggests that there are a bunch of low-level skills which no one has found.

Being able to choose a skill selection is not remotely close to "the same as choosing when to level up". Getting the desired spells is not inherently unbalancing. A lot of the time, you CAN get the skills you want to use on your characters. By your logic, that should obviously break the game in half and make it laughably easy. That is not true.

The idea that having a skill selection of your choice makes the combat boring and predictable is provably wrong by actually engaging in combat. Unpredictable things happen all the time. Attacks you counted on hitting miss. Enemies unexpectedly pile attacks and statuses on a character. Status effects disable a character you thought you would have use of. Mis-aimed lightning bolts stun your own characters through invisible pools of blood and water. Party members get killed. If you're not finding the combat challenging enough, what difficulty are you playing on?

A huge difference between my what you call 'personal attacks' is that they aren't actually attacks of character.

They're indications of flawed thinking models. Now if you view such pointed criticism as a character flaw than that is a personal worldview requiring a more sophisticated thinking model. Larger perspective, pulled out scope, self-auditing, empathetic presence.

You obviously have the capability to at times utilize those based on this post. So let's extend them over to my initial concerns (I will break myself down for you):

The reason I use such language is that as someone who uses this dynamic thought approach I encountered an individual on this board whom asserted a specific desire for a change in the game based on what they perceived as a flaw. A flaw alone.

At no point was this information considered as a potential design feature nor awareness shown that there were potential benefits to the game play flow from the presence of this design.

Even more significantly was the demand that this feature be changed based on a requirement that his specific character have access to specific spells at a specific time in the game. This assertion was made with absolutely no concession to other aspects of tactical balance in the game.

Calling this a linear, rigid thought process is not inherently insulting. It is factual. It is a line of thinking that travels one thread directly and reaches a predetermined conclusion. It is not a thought process with branching, multi threading, and an analysis based outcome.

So having identified that this individual has only one line of thinking how else should my viewpoint stand? Has anyone with only one frame of reference ever had the full point of view? While my viewpoint may not be completely correct in terms of degrees of randomness necessary within an emergent narrative (This is a lever which needs to be carefully tweaked to ensure neither side is too dominant) it's impossible for my point of view to be less complete than his. Why would I take a stance of conciliation with someone who has one conclusion in mind? Now if he had instead engaged me in a more peaceful discussion or his initial post was one of an arm extended for conversation "I'm not sure of the reasoning behind this" or "What is this providing to the game" than my response would have been matched to his initial tone. If someone wants to take a hardline tactic it seems foolish to expect soft power in return; the sign of an individual not expecting to be challenged on their unrefined notions.

There's nothing dishonest about my argument style. I will concede to two things: It is very predatory of rigid, linear thinkers. That's the point. It exposes the house of cards on which their one note ideas stand. Hence it results in anger and true personal insults from the other side. I called no one stupid, dumb, or anything that is meant to demean them. My statements were restricted to the information displayed in their ideas alone.

The other is that I never tried to break down the actual nature of the motivations behind his posting like you have done. You have tried to engage me as a poster whereas I tried to engage his idea and the way he was presenting it alone. Had I tried to engage him as a poster lets be quite clear: the response would have been far more brutal.

Your last statement is a perfect way for us to examine the other side of a situation. Perhaps you've seen many people utilizing these tactics because this board is filled with very rigid, linear thinkers that want the game to be built in one way? I specifically signed up because I read no less than 25 threads with comments similar to this with...a holistically 'give me everything on a silver platter' approach to game design and not nearly enough people disabusing them of their poorly thought out concepts.

Also speaking to your previous post: The fact that neither of you can even competently argue and discuss the idea of an emergent narrative and how it informs this games design does in fact lead me to conclude that you lack the necessary background to competently discuss these game design facets. I've yet to hear a cited experienced of where you've enjoyed emergent narrative that was fueled by your predetermined spell lists.

You are a horribly bitter person; it is quite obvious.

I'm sorry you view my information in such a negative light. Perhaps someday your mind will be able to consider two ideas simultaneously and you will stop this. What I would suggest is you print out all of your posts on this board, scratch out the name, change the font, print them out and read them out loud to a friend.

You need to pull yourself out of your path of inevitability. The fact you still haven't even begun to think of spell availability as a resource is really troubling. You are simply not allowing new information into your brain. You are refusing ideas based on you not being the originator of said ideas. It informs others of your age, worldview, and mental acuity quite clearly.

It explains why you dislike your thought mode being broken down in plain site. It is fragile and constructed with no third party concepts with which to reinforce once a hole has been made.

His solution sounds like exactly what I would say: Here's how to adapt to this in game. Find some poison resistance gear/items to overcome the challenge. If that is a weakness of your party, the game has an option available to deal with it. Needing the designer to change it because you choose not to partake in ANY of those options(Doesn't have to be all of them...there are a variety) is identical to your display here.

You encountered a barrier to your preconceived notion of the outcome. You have already decided how things should go and when your plan was foiled by the natural dynamic of the game you sought solutions outside the game world. That is the opposite of a strategic, tactical mind in every aspect. That is the mind of a rigid, linear thinker who relies on authority to solve their problems.

I'm sorry you don't enjoy this. I'd suggest not putting your volatile character on display if you don't enjoy watching it be broken down.

OMG I tried, you can't imagine how much I tried. But here in Fanboys Land, this was an impossible task.
And don't pay attention to Hiver (aka brainiac), someone must have inadvertently left the cage gate open. However, its permanent insults will probably have it go back there pretty soon.

Erra,

One poignant fact you keep omitting from this debate is the assertion that beta and release are, in fact, separate entities. The fact that release may or may not contain more skills is irrelevant to the discussion at hand, which is about the current beta functionality of skillbooks and their role. What this entails is that there are no more skills available to us, regardless of the opportunity for there to be more at a later date, the release one to be exact.

Now you keep arguing that we don't have all the facts, but we do. We have every fact required to form a coherent argument - that skills are not treasure. Their role as a restrictive mechanism to prevent a path is incongruent with the limiting factor that once we assign points, we cannot reassign them. Your acknowledgement of this fact, by way of the suggestion they might skew probability in favour of learned skills, is indicative of this. Whether you like it or not, you are admitting that the game would be in a worse state to keep skills entirely random so that people who go rank 5 pyro aren't faced with the option of never finding another pyro skillbook in their playthrough.

Again, you are insistent on purporting an argument by attempting character assassination, which is a very sorry state of affairs. You are trying to win an argument when there is no argument in place, these boards are here to provide feedback and produce communication between players, which you are not looking for it seems.

Once Larian studios realises they lack the diversity in skills I hope they are encouraged to improve the skill situation rather than leave it so haphazard that players believe discovering 15 different skills will make the gameplay more emergent. (I'm not sure how emergent it is when you discover a large fireball spell on your knight/ranger combo heh).

On a final note, I shall remind you that when you have an agenda, you can try to think in multiple ways, and you can accuse everyone else of being linear, but ultimately you're only fooling yourself.

Duder, Stabbey erupted into child mode the first time someone put up a well reasoned response to what he/she views as a determent to emergent gameplay. And when further discussion came to his reply, he couldn't be bothered with any more participation.

From what I've seen in this thread is that few people are up to par with discussing gameplay on Erra's level.

: \

Welcome to the Larian forums! There's all kinds of amazing discussion about the upcoming game, loads and loads of threads. Most new people's first posts are questions, comments, or suggestions. And yet, of all threads to make your debut, you poke into here to attack me and defend a nutbar who spent paragraphs and paragraphs making unfounded personal attacks in lieu of anything of actual merit. What a coincidence!

I smell an alt account by erra.

Erra, please stop fighting with your imaginary "rigid, linear thinking" foes.

You think randomness in skill acquisition makes the game more emergent? Good, then that's true, but only for YOU. It can be different for other persons. You have to accept that.

That's OK, Erra seems to have imaginary friends, too.

With any luck, they'll take the debate offline into Erra's wetware.

Also, "have to accept" seems somewhat optimistic to me. But I'm cynical

Woah! I feel like this thread is getting seriously derailed. Can we get back to talking about the two main points of hybrid chars and spells books etc?

I know people have beef with each other and of course anyone can express that. I felt some of the replies to what I said were also unfair and/or narrow-minded but there was plenty of people who didn't respond that way.

Just my two cents. I know things need to be resolved, I just didn't want the thread to get too zany.




This is absurd. Re-evaluate their path? Skillpoints are permanently assigned. If you're okay with wasting a bunch of skill points, then okay. But I'm not. The game's systems should function together in a coherent and sensible way. Which means if I put points into pyro, then I should be able to buy the fire spells for my character that I want/need. Not being able to do so (which sometimes happens as a result of the excessive vendor randomness) means the system is broken in some fashion.

I don't want things "handed to me on a silver platter" as one or two people have accused, I just want to be able to use the skills my character has acquired via my choices. This doesn't some unreasonable in any way.

I think we already have to search hard enough. You have to run all over town to different people to buy different things. This I actually enjoy, but more of it would be tedious.

My bad for contributing to the derail. Back to your point.

If this were some kind of minimalist/survivor horror/grimdark angst-fest, I would have no problem with having to hope and scrounge for basic resources and the means to develop *any* skills at all.

But this is a fantasy romp. In-jokes, broad humor, silliness, cartoony graphics and animation. Different mood, different approach, presumably a different audience with different expectations.

So when you offer players a number of functional paths and archetype approaches, and tell them they can combine freely, mix and match across those archetypes and roles, this makes sense to me. Hybrid characters are the kind of approach the game purports to encourage, and many of them work just dandy. And are a lot of fun, which seems to me to be the point.

But to then set up game mechanics that will stymie many players in basic role development - right out of the gate - and frustrate the hell out of those players; that seems... counter-productive in terms of game design and viability. To me. Others apparently differ. <shrug>

Just because a vendor doesn't happen to have the skills you want, doesn't mean the skills aren't available in game. You just don't get the skill exactly when you want it. It adds some variety to the game even if you were to do a new run with exactly the same char build.
I think it adds to the enjoyment of the game. And I don't think that is absurd.

Hybrids are good as full supports. Max your speed and buff all

The issue is that you only get a handful of skills per level in that skill, which mean that, at least for early game, you can quickly fall into 'this character is unplayable because he doesn't have the only offensive ability he could have'.

It's less of an issue for higher-level skills as you would have already a good deal of versatility, but at first it can cause problems.

This is why, for me, a good balance would be that skill tomes of low level stuff can be gotten quasi-reliably so that your character gets playable, but for higher level stuff it's much harder. You can 'expect' to have them by endgame (especially if some are handplaced in some dungeons), but you could miss some spells you would want for a good long time (or even, if unlucky, not get a couple).

Creating an unplayable character is not as easy as you make out. Just because you don't have the most powerful spell for your level doesn't make that character unplayable.

No, but when you have a low-level character that doesn't have /the only viable offensive spell of his chosen element/, it can.

Hence why i separate "low-level" with mid/end-levels. It matters much less once your character has some versitality if you have to wait a bit before the next big thing (and it makes finding it great), but when you are at low-level it can be crippling.

It's bit like how in BG2 the only way to get pierce-magic was through random loot. You almost always got it- but when you didn't, it was 'oops, can't do half the content right now'.

No, you lose the argument because you devolve into all those pathetic personal insults and screaming accusations of whatever fallacy randomly falls out of your head. Again.

Just like this one above. Which is nothing but an empty assertion, a declarative statement you simply invent yourself without providing any proof of it.

You can disagree with him. Nobody is denying your right to disagree.
Thats just another invented fallacy you use.


Why? Because you say so?



It was doing a bit too much damage because you did not pay any attention or ever attempted tpo use the resources to counter it that the game readily provides... being an RPG game no less.


The problem was your refusal to adhere to most basic and simple RPG gameplay rules of engagement.



Skills are not resources in this context. And i wouldnt call them resources even in some high level overview either. So no... its only you who is inherently contradictory to common sense.

Erra is also not arguing for anything like that, you strawmn argument dispenser.

When we are talking about resources in the game, it is a very specific term - meaning items provided to you in the game with which you can reduce or remove specific dangers, increase your character resistances to specific damages.

Skill are on the other hand specific capabilities. Offensive, environmental and defensive.

I dont care how similar that looks to your brain. We should keep the specifics separate for clarity of discussion and to avoid pushing all and everything into some gigantic global empty assertion.... which is what you did there. Because you have no real actual arguments.


What erra is saying is that it is not only alright but one of the staples of RPG gameplay to have some randomization in the gameplay, in the availability of the skills. It is certainly nothing strange or foreign in RPG games which are most often based on player not being able to have anything and everything all at once - which actually creates and makes possible to have specific different builds and different playthrough through the game.

Unless we are talking about mass market fake RPGs that are really action games - and by the internal non-logic of your arguments, use of fallacies, strawmans and ad hominems - it seems you are exactly that kind of player.

Someone who cries about not having a specific skill - because you just dont want to adapt to anything at all. But rather cry, scream insults and splurge fallacies at anyone who doesnt agree with you.

Thats a thinking of a mass market brainless drone.

You should not be playing any real RPG games at all.
Instead, you should focus on games that only pretend to be RPGs but actually are created to force feed egoes like that with constant, never ending barrage of everything and a kitchen sink.




What does time has to do with anything? What kind of laughable logic is that?


I said nothing about being "Focused" stabbey. But i guess if you dont use strawman arguments you would have literally nothing to say.

I said you merely should bloody use them sometimes - instead of running into enemies without thinking. And then crying and screaming and accusing the game being made badly.

Yep. It's designer choices, nothing is wrong, it's opinion.

I find hybrids easily playable at the hardest setting in the game.

I don't mind fishinf for spell books, think of it as a book store and these are old books. Sometimes they have what you want and sometimes they don't. That said, a little voice inside of me says I'd like them to always be there. But such is life. I'd like them to be sorted by name and level and welp... nope.

I'm cool with both, so put me down for that!