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Woohoo, @Hassat Hunter is famous now!

The modders that spent 15 years fixing KOTOR2.

https://wrath.owlcatgames.com https://www.pcgamer.com/pathfinder-wrath-of-the-righteous-announced/

I had send team 2 (in a damaged Manticore) to defend an Anu Haven in Scandinavia, while team 1 was wrapping up a mission in Northern America. Before team 2 even reached the Anu, and while team 1 was on the long way back to the main base in Northeast Asia, to recuperate, a Jericho Haven on the Iberian Peninsula got under attack. So after defending the Anu Haven, team 2, without rest rushed over there. They got there in the nick of the nick of time, just as the Haven was about to get overrun (defense had just ticked down to 0). Then the team figured out why the Jericho havens in this area have been going dark. They gathered the civilians and guided them away from the fighting (you get control of the civilians if you go near them). And the pandorans shelled the evac zone. But luckily it was the one time their artillery missed. Giving all civilians time to evacuate the area. (We won. Barely. Everyone is alive. And we won because the Chiron that had been bombarding us from afar retreated) And on a different note: a backer who may possibly have liked a certain TV series:

I like spending more time in one place in a game. A good city is the one which has you coming back to it. It should be a fairly save, populated space, with a dark underbelly. Quests should weave through it. A decent choice of companions recruitable for adventures. On a most basic level it can be just a hub you come back to: shops, companions, NPC to talk to, stuff to store. Ankathla is great, as unlike PoEs don't have a mobile keep - you are likely to have a keep there, and companions will return to tavern. Cities are also a convenient way of delivering multiple quests - be it by giving a wide choice to start with, or setting scripted encounters as Devs know you will come back to it. I prefer if we get to the city early on, with stuff we can't afford, and possibly not all districts welcoming the newcomer. A city can be a nice reflection of our progress throught the game as we move from doing jobs for randoms in the tavern, to dealing with kings.

I quit my job xD

I dislike large cities as well. i get bogged down in them and thinking back that is exactly what happened to me in BG2, NWN2, and POE 2. I beat BG1 but i dont remember the city with any special fondness. in POE 2 it was one of the stumbling blocks that kept me from progressing in game. I just beat POE 2 for the first time a few weeks ago after so many restarts. I liked Dragonfall but Berlin was not remotely on the scale of any of these other cities. It was more like guilded vale or stalwart. And Dragonfall progressed differently because the overall game was smaller in scope. You would do some Berlin stuff then go out to main and side missions then come back and there would be some new Berlin stuff to do then rinse and repeat. but that game had no world map to explore so the setup and progression are not the same as just going to city like Nekataka and being bombarded with tons of quest if you start talking to people. I loved POE 1. Defiance Bay bordered on to much content at times and i definitely felt that bogged down feeling when i did my first run and i was in the im going to do 100% of content but once i started role playing more in subsequent runs and ignoring people and quest i didnt think my character would bother with the content lessened up and was able to enjoy more.

The length of the game is what always scares me away from yet another run through. I've already played it twice through, and knowing how long it is and how much commitment I'd have to put into finishing it, it always makes me pause when I think about starting up a new game. Love the game. Probably one of my favorites of all time. But, as crazy as it sounds, the sheer size of the game makes me play it less than I would if it was about a third of its size.

Wow seems like ages ago playing that as a teenager and thinking "This has actually better RPG elements than KOTOR, but something doesn't quite add up" -or something along those lines- now I know the full story! Real talent and ability getting shortchanged, what else is new? Anyway: https://www.thegamer.com/reasons-excited-elden-ring/

I sent him the link to this discussion so he doesn't think we are talking about him behind his back

I like it because it's a one-stop-shop for a lot of the stuff you otherwise need to spend points to support the pet. You get SO MUCH as just a class feature, requiring very little further investment at all. - Pet got hurt? You could spend a Bond AND a ability point AND a long cast time to heal it, or... you could Ghost Heart resummon it for 1 Bond, no ability investment, and fast cast time. - Pet died? Same deal, except it also costs less Bond to resummon than revive. - Pet Immobilized? Dominated? Stunned? Paralyzed? ANY kind of CC? Resummon. Problem solved. - Pet needs to be moved? Either let it walk because it's immune to engagement, or resummon.

GSmartControl is what I'd suggest to read the SMART data of drives. In general, it usually works best to install drivers specific to your motherboard (or in this case, laptop model i.e. from MSI). The GPU drivers are the exception to that rule, since it's usually better to use the latest from Nvidia/AMD, but maybe try MSI's latest driver if they have one for the time eing.

Indeed. Max MIG, CON, PER and INT Fire Godlike with Veteran's Recovery, Shod-in-Faith, Fulvano's Amulet and 12 survival for the healing bonus and all that. A Ring of Focused Flames + Vulnerable Attack + getting bloodied. Cast Combusting Wounds on the guys. Once Blooded kicked in: Heart of Fury. Remainder got killed by Battle Forged + Blood Thirst. It worked ok but I had to drink quite a lot of Infuse wVE potions. What killed me at lvl 16 in some unimportant fight in Noonfrost was a bug with Battle Forged + Second Wind (Athletics): if you use Second Wind while Battle Forged is active you will hit yourself with the fire retaliation. I was low on endurance and forgot about it - and Battle Forged dmg is preeetty high at lvl 16...

Cool! I am actually having fun rebuilding from level 1. Revisiting lore to repeat hearing and revisiting a chance use the tactics I have learned on a partial playthrough to become stronger in tactics early in the game. But if I get tired with that I can always go and use your technique on my last save when I realized I had borked the mechanics of Aloth. Thanks!

just to add, the confusing part about the initial roll-to-hit-an-inanimate-corpse doesn't show up anywhere in the combat log, it's completely invisible. with expert mode off (obviously not a choice in the ultimate challenge), you do actually see the to-graze/hit odds when hovering over a corpse, which is extremely helpful (because sometimes one corpse will be a better choice than another simply because of their defenses... again, don't ask me how an inanimate corpse can dodge a spell)

That's a shame. The bigger Aoe is sadly pretty useless solo and there is no reason not to use upgraded lightning invocation 90% of the time since it is insanely good, does more damage and doesn't require a corpse and when the rare cases arise where you wanna do non lightning damage, chances are you have Seven Nights already which while being more expensive in phrases is just so much better overall, especially with the upgrade (one could even intentionally avoid lighning immunes till then but since there is also summons AND autoattacks....). Tbf the Aoe is pretty amazing if one plays with a party and for a low phrases invocation the damage is quite ok.

this is sort of my fault. there was inconsistent targeting between the base white wurms, and the upgrade. the base worked like it does now, and the upgrade worked like in poe1 (making it an amazing upgrade). i raised the inconsistent targeting, and they "fixed the glitch" and removed the poe1-style targeting from the upgrade. sorry about the nerf on the flip side, like @Boeroer said, they compensate for it by making the base damage and aoe much, much larger than in poe1.

Americans have been doing this for WW2 movies for years, making out they were the only ones who did anything in that war. Completely forgetting all the efforts British and the rest of the allies had been doing for years. Then young people believe the rubbish they see in films and get a completely incorrect and distorted view of the world.

Looks like the producers of FOXCATCHER submitted it as a Drama for the Globes - its the producers who submit under the category; the change allows the Hollywood Foreign Press to move dramas out of the category. Also...

@Boeroer Was it retaliation barb? Congratulations @thelee !

Yes, one corpse (the one you target) for one (big) explosion. Other corpses don't matter at that moment. In PoE it was a smaller and less damaging explosion for each and every corpse in the cone.

You are looking at it in the wrong way. Actually retraining your wizard lets you gain a lot more spells than before. And it only costs you money. Here's how you do it: lean all spells from grimoires which you didn't already learn. This will cost some bucks. If you already did that: even bettere. Now you take some random grimoires and write all the spells you have learned into those. I guess you missed that this is possible? You can simply write your learned spells into any grimoire you find (replacing the original spells in it). Unique spells (like Ninagauth's Shadowflame and such) that you learned from unique grimoires don't need to be written down - you'll never forget them. Ok, now you have written down you current learned spells into some grimoires. Hit retrain. Hush! Don't level up! First learn all the spell you wrote into your books gain - that might be a bit expensive, but trust me: it's worth it. Now level up! You will only be presented with the spells you don't already know. That way you will waste nothing. You'll have a way bigger spell portfolio after retraining. Which makes your wizarda lot more flexible. You can learn every spell in the game (besides the uique ones you must find) with a few retrains (if you wish to do so). You will have payed for it only with money. It's totally worth the time and dime.

will start off by recognizing how the spread o' weapons were not fantastic in the base game. because backers could sponsor creation o' unique weapons, there were a glut o' deadfire sabres--a problem which the developers recognized and attempted to address in the expansions. is a fair complaint and obsidian recognized the mistake. that said, your itemization and metagaming concerns is actual a bit self contradictory. unlike in other crpgs, and even poe, there isn't overwhelming benefits in "specializing" in a particular weapon type. a first time player who happens to discover the chromoprismatic staff but doesn't have staff modal is hardly gonna suffer game-changing penalties by using the staff as their primary weapon. admitted, there were a few modal synergies which were extreme powerful (specific build barbarians with a morningstar for example) but the morningstar user who finds the chromoprismatic staff late in the game is unlikely gonna agonize 'bout failure to acquire staff modal earlier. from a practical perspective, there is considerable less need to metagame weapons choices in deadfire than most any similar crpg. in bg2 for instance, how many paladins with metagame knowledge chose other than the two-handed sword option? were possible to go sword and board, but holy avenger made choose 2-h a forgone conclusion for most bg2 players. got a similar paladin situation in deadfire? in deadfire, being literal the only person to play a a berserker shaman o' wael 'ccording to telemetry early after release, we used the lord darryn's volgue for much o' the game w/o ever taking the pollaxe modal. switched 'tween morningstar and pollaxe and 'cause it weren't in the initial release when we played our contemplative, we didn't know 'bout karabörü 'til we stumbled on it relative late in the game, but we got considerable use from it as well. yeah, if for pure role-play purposes you wanna use hatchets, then play deadfire results in a good chance you can play the majority o' the game w/o finding frostbite. if you are dead set on being a dual-wielding hatchet user, then for much o' the game you got the plant killer weapon and xoti's sickle, which would necessitate you having high religion to make use o' and would obvious further narrow rp choice. whatever. however, and is a big however, if you are using hatchets as part o' dual-wield, or as a tank or as a one-hand specialist, there is gonna be a multitude o' other equal viable (superior) options available to you throughout the game, and forgo a spear or club or dagger 'cause you just really wanna use a hatchet is kinda on you, no? dunno, but you make one complaint seem like two by mentioning metagame, which don't seem fair given deadfire's reduction o' the metagame conundrum. am disagreeing with the nekataka complaint, but is more o' a taste thing so our pov is no more valid than yours. athkatla is often held up as a kinda gold standard for crpg cities, and very little 'bout bg2's city were essential to critical path story once you emerged from tutorial dungeon. need earn money to leave athkatla and get to brynnlaw. side with one o' two factions who got only brief impact on game. fact there is much to do in nekataka w/o being railroaded to follow specific critical path quest lines were, in our mind, a positive, and the factions were much more integral and had enduring impact in deadfire compared to bg2. nevertheless, am admitting is a matter o' taste. am not disagreeing that priest flexibility in particular were hurt by the change from vancian to per encounter w/o a serious change to the spell catalog being implemented along with the change. we assume to save resources, the obsidian developers made minor adjustments to poe priest spells and in so doing they made far too many spells nothing but trap choices for the unwary. if you only got a couple spell choices per level, then highly situational abilities is gonna be objective bad choices. felt lazy. were any number o' options we saw which could ameliorate the problem even if the obsidian folks were too lazy or overworked to fundamental alter spell catalogs. during late beta we mentioned how providing "prayer beads or vade mecum or medicine bag or some deity-specific object which performs a similar but lesser role as does the wizard grimoire," woulda' been enough to make all those situational use priest spells viable. *shrug* our suggestion were too late, or too difficult to add... and the obsidian folks weren't bothering to read the obsidian board feedback anyway, which were made clear when josh noted how he were unaware 'til almost release o' deadfire the way in which might were affecting damage calculations in spite o' such being one o' the more common repeated concerns from the hardcore number crunchers routine posting in the deadfire feedback section o' obsidian's own freaking message board since almost firstest week o' the beta. reality o' pointlessness o' board feedback were utter mind blowing and complete disheartening... not that obsidian indifference annoyed us or anything o' the sort. not like am still bitter. nope. HA! Good Fun!

I agree this may just a preference thing for rural or smaller areas. I think i like the smaller town with more focused content to discover or alternatively i like exploring areas that i feel like i should explore because the game gave me reason to explore. So my initial hesitation with Nekataka was the main story line. i go to city go talk to queen and im suppose to leave to go to another city in like 10 minutes. it felt like "what is all this content for when the main story is sending my away" as opposed to defiance bay which at least sent me to places in the city and to dyford and along the way i go to do new content. And I knew from the reviews and from the talk here the main story of POE2 was short so i felt like if i progressed in main story to fast i would finish the game to early so i would stay in nekataka and start to get bogged down in lots of quest that felt weird in light of the the main story and would just quit. i finally just decided to ignore the main story and forget about it and play the faction game which felt like a different game and was able to enjoy it more. I also just enjoyed the slower start to POE 1 than the hook for POE 2. they basically did the opposite of why i got hooked in POE 1 because of all the criticism and the big city was another one of those criticism that pushed the game further away from what i liked about POE 1.

Is this related to just an urban vs non-urban (suburban, rural) preference? I'll say that I'm unabashedly into urban environments, which colors the fact of why I appreciate some RPG cities so much (esp Fallout 3's DC). If they eliminated a bunch of the quest density, I would still enjoy it on its own merits I think. To reiterate, Athkatla was great because there was just so much discoverability and interactivity. It was just an added layer was that it was a richly realized city environment (bridge district was hella cool when I was a kid, and it blew my mind to learn later that there are actually cities outside the US that have big thick bridges with markets on them). But if they could do the same with a rural environment, it would still be great in its own respect. In that respect, I would agree that Dyrford is pretty great - as far as quest hubs go it was deep, there were nice little narrative easter eggs (such as the tanner opening right into the skaenite dungeon and them having a hidden book on skaen). But cities are still better

After about 5 months break I'm trying my luck at the Ultimate again this time with a troubadour/priest, the amount of knowledge that heaped up during my break is quite big so it feels like I'm almost playing a completely different game. Sadly I still get distracted very easily by reading twitch chat and oing stuff ingame at the same time instead of pressing c like anormal person. Yesterday I had two really early deaths due to that but today was pretty successful, even killed Beina with a level 7 char before going to neketaka and with Decadency's help survived a storm

Exactly. Dyrford, too. The best towns are always the small ones.

I also prefer the keyboard and mouse, though I do play sports games with a controller, and the freedom to easily tinker with the game files and even the PC. I'm not against consoles (exclusive loving console fans are another story) but I've never been one to veg out on the couch, and my computer chair is quite comfy, so that aspect of consoles has never appealed to me. Pretty much everything I want to play comes out on PC and I'm not going to buy a console for one or two games as even my favorite sports games are on PC. We had to edit configuration files to get our games to run and we liked it! But seriously, that early tinkering is what led me to my lifelong love of tech and a decent career.

I need a pick me up today. Time to go with a tried and tested jam that never fails to put a smile on my face: Bonus points to Dschinghis Khan for doing a proto-Stanky Leg decades early.

whew! just wanted to confirm that my run finally got validated. i don't know what i'm going to do with the patch... frame it? it's funny, i think obsidian managed to both overestimate the difficulty and underestimate the difficulty at the same time (e.g. staff writing notes to je sawyer that this challenge was fundamentally impossible vs the fact that there are so many patches and entries on their plaque, but i think i'll be merely the fourth to have done it, after six months of the challenge being out).

I love that this joke comes back every election. Personally, I always root for the meteor.

Dungeon Siege 1. The days of quality character creation options! :P Had an urge to kill monsters while listening to the great soundtrack. It's still fun in that mindless/simple way, except the clicking on the ground constantly to make the party move every 5 inches is super-wearying, vs. being able to just hold the mouse button down to keep them running. On the bright side, I installed from ancient disc and it still works on Win10 with no "help" at all. There's also a mod to let you play the MP map/world in single-player (used to be able to then one patch disallowed it) which is great since that was better than the campaign.

I still think the gap is a lot bigger for top end-PC's. The amount of graphic/textures vs. resolution vs. FPS and other such things is still large. What I notice most is more limited FoV's, more blurred backgrounds, use of a lot lower textures in near to middle distances in order to increase performance, and inability to even reach a steady 60fps without stutter, frame pacing, and whatever else issues. No I am not talking about using console-4k options, even just in 1080. This does not mean consoles can't/don't look good. Many don't care about hi-res textures and some even like blurring effects (which often hide lower textures as side effect). The next gen of consoles (not too far away I suppose) will close the gap more and hopefully will be able to reach a smooth 60fps in modern/new games. The main (gaming) difference tho is generally about graphics and high-end performance especially at high resolutions. You can buy gaming laptops that are very good these days, but they are still lesser than the same-named parts of actual desktop parts, and much less upgradable and thus likely more of an expense long-run, having to be replaced wholesale more often (if you want to keep up with newest/latest games over years). If one isn't picky about fps, textures, Ultra graphics or performance considerations at 4k, and doesn't play games where wanting a lot of mods is a factor, there is nothing wrong with consoles and again, next gen will up the ante once more as well. The whole "PC vs. Console" thing re: gaming is silly in this day and age. Just use what fits your style/life/comfort and budget. Edit: or do what I/some of do, and have both. I like having "high-end" PC rigs for applications and a lot of gaming, but at this point having a console for certain games or when I want to couch-lounge is cool too.

Some examples that come to mind of people who did this, with little connection to the gaming industry, are actor Vin Diesel and MLB Pitcher Curt Schilling. Worked out well with the former and nearly bankrupted Rhode Island in the latter, so I'm going to say it is still a pretty high risk investment.

It's that time of year again!

RDR1 on the 1X:

Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin To the Frigid Outskirts. Zallen (and Lud) defeated.

so, so finished Atelier Ryza. pic of final boss, in all his defeated glory.

I only like Ignis/Ardyn DLC but I really need to finish Prompto/Gladio's on PC to get the rewards. Pah. At least it's awesome-looking at times on the 4k TV. Or maybe it's just Aranea that is awesome. I hate the freaking snowmobile (any major dmg. taken knocks you off of it and it takes forever to get up/get back on the thing) so I just run on foot and jump off the cliffs.

Is the motivation to see the companions face? There is an option in settings that allows you to disable helmets for both yourself and companions. Or is it some role play objective? I am just wondering why you would not want the helmets armor and skill boost.

You can go into options and select view the helmet or not. It won't remove the helmet, but will show your companions faces even though the helmet is on. I did that as you spend to much time talking to them and would rather see their faces too

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