Recommended Choise!

HexHammer

I remember back in the preteen days drowning in all them nickpicking rules, and english not being my first language, causing me to do back choises such as having a halbard and dagger for my elf fighter, instead of a longbow and a longsword.

Some small guiding pointers would be really nice, highlighting the "right" choises one can do.

Kithrixx

I think "suggested proficiencies" would be a nice feature. We already have a "suggested spells" button or something similar, so I can't imagine it would be too difficult.

Silence

As long as they have a power-gamer propose the recommendations. I don't mean to diminish role-playing (which is tremendous fun and the real point of the game) but advising new players to make bad choices at character creation usually leads to them dying a lot and ultimately quitting the game.

Case in point, the NWN2 recommendations were often horrendous. Points in taunt and parry? Really? lol

I think if they added a text description would be great. For instance, they tell you at the stat allocation screen things like 'dexterity is important to the thief' and 'charisma is important to the paladin.' They should tell you in crystal clear fashion things like, 'longswords are useful and common weapons in the sword coast' and 'find/remove traps is an essential skill all thieves should have.'

HexHammer

Silence said:

Case in point, the NWN2 recommendations were often horrendous. Points in taunt and parry? Really? lol

While your example is true, I didn't intend it to cover subjective matters.

Maybe I should repharse it to "hey you have a racial/whatever bonus for this and that, here!-marker".

Brude

Silence said:

I think if they added a text description would be great. For instance, they tell you at the stat allocation screen things like 'dexterity is important to the thief' and 'charisma is important to the paladin.' They should tell you in crystal clear fashion things like, 'longswords are useful and common weapons in the sword coast' and 'find/remove traps is an essential skill all thieves should have.'

It's already there. If you click on the name of the stat, you get a short description and a word or two about which classes should focus on it (eg: 'Dexterity is important to thieves,' etc.).

Silence

Yeah, I know it's there. My desire was for it to be 'crystal clear'. As in not embedded in text boxes which must first be summoned with a click. It would be nice if, rather than making you click on each item and read the description (for weapons this is a daunting task, there are twenty or so) they just gave you a short run-down of which items are good for inexperienced players.

HexHammer

Brude said:

It's already there. If you click on the name of the stat, you get a short description and a word or two about which classes should focus on it (eg: 'Dexterity is important to thieves,' etc.).

You should very well know that that describtion is insufficient by far! Just take Con bonus that only fighters will benefit from, and other classes only benefits up to 16 iirc, therefore it's importaint to tell such things.

Brude

Silence said:

Yeah, I know it's there. My desire was for it to be 'crystal clear'. As in not embedded in text boxes which must first be summoned with a click. It would be nice if, rather than making you click on each item and read the description (for weapons this is a daunting task, there are twenty or so) they just gave you a short run-down of which items are good for inexperienced players.

I get what you mean. You're addressing an age-old problem with cRPGs: That a new player has zero idea which ability, talent, or stat to take unless they've played through the game at least once.

This problem will never go away, but I think we're ignoring two solutions. One existed in 1998 -- the printed manual, which contained a gross ton of information to guide first time players.

The other exists today online. Anybody can play as far as Nashkel and then Google "baldur best thief build" if they're really lost. Heck, DSimpson's Gamefaq's guide has been consistently updated for fourteen years. That's better than anything a developer could do in-game.