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It should say "slain". Slayed is rapidly gaining popularity, but there are still enough of us around who know that to slay is an irregular verb. You had a quest to slay the monster. You slew the monster. The monster was slain.

hey, don't spoil the worst part of the game for him, it's the best part

Kebab (from a restaurant) and some home made dessert after a South African recipe (one of the girls is a very good cook). Something soft and delicious with a distinct peppermint flavour and a bit of a cheesecake like consistency. No idea what it was called. As for drinks, no wine. Just whisky (I know, we're such plebs! 😝). Was a nice evening. Hadn't planned on doing anything for my birthday, so I got taken a bit by surprise with no time to really prepare anything.

TL;DR: This is going to be a rant that basically is focused on the lack of polishing on the finished product for PC from part of Obsidian. I'm a backer who felt greatly satisfied with PoE1. I have more of 7 characters on said game and had tested multiple variants for some of them. I consider the final version of PoE1 enough good to play it mostly on the vanilla version. I was more than happy to support the crowdfunding for PoE2. Yet, I was unable to play it until this year. And to my surprise, the current version of the game (V5.0) feels unpolished as if Obsidian just did not have cared about this game after its initial release. I will try to elaborate my affirmation on three aspects: Dialogues, companions’ quests and the battle system. Dialogue options are written poorly Early quests at PoE1 were beautifully written and you had multiple alternatives. E.G. Raedric’s stronghold. However, this doesn’t seem to be the case for PoE2. Once that you leave the first island the quests have issues. A good example is early in the game with my Paladin from the Shieldbearers of St. Elcga order and Zamar the shipwright: I can use diplomacy to coerce him into accepting the principi's control over his trade. I can make an aggressive act to protect the merchant from the principi (thus failing my vows). Therefore, early in the game I was forced into getting an aggressive reputation because there were no more alternatives through the dialogues for favoring Zamar over the principi (not even something like “I just can’t let you do that”). Eventually I even got a second point on said reputation, but I don’t have any idea when it was, so it’s not relevant. Another notable example of poorly written quests is at the end (WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD): I had Tekehu, Pallegina and Maia on the party for the final quests with the trade companies and the huana’s queen. With the VTC, Maia protested and I refused the offer. This choice would break my relationship with Pallegina, but I would discover that until I sailed on my ship, not that bad. The problem is with the events with the RDC and Maia: once I refuse their offer, I’m forced to kill everyone with Maia on the party; zero dialogue from her part at all before or after that battle. I had to kill her brethren on self-defense and the only one who had something to say was Tekehu. This behavior with Maia is even worse on the last battle of the game against Atsura. I was expecting her to betray my party at that point or refusing to help me in the battle. But, nope, she is silently helping to kill her great mentor without any single protest before or after. It would be a big surprise for me that after installing the DLC I would discover the problem: I never speak with Maia between the events at RDC and the final battle. Even when there were no indications that I had to talk with her... Companion quests are buggy The quest for Aloth is forever stuck for me. Why? Because I explored too much before his quest started. After only speaking with VTC and the principi, I went to Crookspur and cleaned it from slavers. Suddenly the RDC got control of that island. I would discover much later that this chain of actions would become an automatic fail for talking with the Wahaki's leader. And because the quest with Whakai failed, once that Aloth’s quest was finally available to me it was too late. AFAIK, this is a bug know from early as V2, and it is still in the game. I even got a buggy situation on the last DLC where I only battled once with the Wael's oracle and I had conversations with NPCs that were not on the screen. First time playing the DLC and I screwed it, just because I didn't pick a single item from a shelf… There are more quests with bugs easy to trigger or big inconsistencies, but those two bugs are the best representatives of this issue. The battle system has serious bugs I’m not speaking about the battle mechanics per se. Moving from PoE1 to PoE2 is like moving from D&D 3.x to 5.0. That is all. I'm speaking about proper bugs on the battle system. I personally prefer real time approach over turn-based one. And, I also play on Path of the Damned setting. Eventually I started to try my luck with the mega-bosses and then I discovered it: Potions are bugged, they just don’t work on battle if an A.I. is active. Plus, your characters can get stuck in an infinite animation in the middle of the battle randomly. Probably I fell victim of those bugs on previous battles, but I was able to mitigate it. Still, at the end, I was forced to make strategies for mitigating the bugs… yey! Conclusion On brief, quests are poorly written, they have serious bugs and the battle system is strongly bugged. Frankly, I suspect those bugs will be left unsolved, thus I lost my respect for Obsidian. Not more support from my part to them in any form. Sure, PoE2 main bugs can be solved with mods created by the community. Yet, Obsidian ended its support for the game with serious issues in its core and even with simple bugs that were known from long time ago. P.S. Of course, If I’m wrong and Obsidian eventually fixes the bugs, at least the battle system, I would consider my words. But it’s not going to happen, they will release some more patches for the Nintendo Switch console and that is all.

One more to your list: 11. By and large they are ignorant of the laws they are supposed to be "enforcing"

4th Dark Souls 2 boss down... The Pursuer... For me this one was exercise of pure futility 😢with 28 attempts. Most of my deaths were from me being to greedy... Sometimes I just miss patience required for this game... I really do not remember, when it was last time, when I needed so many attempts at one fight. The hilarious thing about this is, that this one is easy mode for most of the people... Sometimes I just do not understand myself 😄 Final attempt in video bellow.

Another case of abuse of power and complete disregard of human life. Disgraceful. And, people will defend it. I've said it before, I'll save it again, the biggest issue with police is not racism; it's too much power and too much leeway. Some basic 'wroingness' of modern policing: 1. Cops can legally lie to you. 2. Cops do not legally have to rescue you from dangerous situation. 3. The cops' savety comes before civilians which is a spit in the face of the job description. 4. the police no longer 'work' for the populace. They were work (like always) for the gov't. aka 'To Serve and Protect' is no longer a thing. More like to 'Bully and Intimidate'. 5. Police are armed like they are the army going into always hostile terrain. 6. They have the legal right to murder anyone who refuses to cooperate them unless you meet a ridiculous high standard of wrong doing. 7. Like above, police are held to a LOWER standard of behavior than the public is. WHAT THE HELL? It should be higher standard. Yet they demand 'respect'. LMAO 8. They are trained to FEAR everybody in every situation. 100lb women, little kids, everyone are treated like they are more dangerous than a nuclear bomb. 9. You can't call the cops for help because they may end up killing you. And, it doesn't matter the colour of your skin or gender. It happens to anyone. 10. The good cops are dragged down by the bad cops, by the 'silly loyalty code' and by apologists who make excuses for every bad behavior the police commit. SICKENING.

That one I really wanted to strangle J. K. Rowling for. Harry Potter sure sneaked a LOT with his invisibility cloak. I just looks... wrong. Wrong, I say. WRONG.

Nice save.

I was exploring in X4 and I ran into Turquoise Sea, which was most definitely a Boron sector in the previous games (Boron sectors always have aquatic names, Paranid have religious names, Teladi have business or money related names). Turns out the sector is teeming Xenon, which paints a grim picture as to why Boso Ta is the only Boron I've encountered in the game. Hopefully the Boron make a full return in a later expansion, I like their ships. I found a Xenon Wharf (manufactures small and medium ships) in that sector and a Xenon Shipyard (manufactures L and XL ships) in Scale Plate Green (used to be a pirate sector in earlier games). If I could destroy the wharf and shipyard then it would deal a crippling blow to the Xenon in that part of the galaxy, since they would be unable to replenish their fleet (unless they have another wharf and/or shipyard nearby, I doubt it). As you can imagine, such critically important stations are very heavily defended, so I can't do it just yet, but I will. I'm going full on Exterminatus on the Xenon eventually.

"So did you just assume BruceVC's domestic houseworker's gender, you sexist pig? You fit right in with PM Blackface. Disgusting! " 😄 Bruce is a feminist who supports women workers. Why would he hire a man over a woman knowing full well, women are better at everything?

Yup, the biggest challenge during Central European beer trip, is to avoid Heineken owned beers 😛 If you are successful during that challenge, you will be justly rewarded

I didn't say he should use NPC Priest. I said he should have 2 Priests to really be able to use his MC offensively.

Well... I probably would have played it even without being enhanced... but i only ever played the enhanced version... so i might fall into the newcomer category. though i would attribute that more to playing POE(first crpg i played) and enjoying it. As far as voice overs go. I really enjoy them, however if it is the difference between the series being profitable... I will make my lazy ass read.

The truth about beer is thus: It is great in Central Europe with the exception of Germany. For some reason they managed to convince the entire world that the stuff they're selling is good. Anyway, should anyone of you find yourself in Vienna some day don't fall for some tourist trap and visit a small, off the beaten path pub called Kolar. Best beer in town, and a real contender for best beer anywhere. Just take care and don't get yourself the Starobrno just because it sounds Czech. I mean, sure, it is, but it's disguised Heineken swill. Heh. Although I have no idae why you would want to order anything but the Kolar beers. Unless you like wheat beer. In which case you're better off in Germany. Off you go.

an example here is the beach you wake up on. if you go get beodul first, you'll be forced into an aggressive option to tell him to get out of the cave. even with all UI options enabled, there doesn't appear to be any other dialogue choice. if, however, you go rescue the other pirate stuck on the ship first, she'll create a fire, and when you go to rescue beodul, you'll have an extra, non-aggressive option to tell him to go wait by the fire. i'm guessing because that option isn't linked to a skill or background or class or stat, it doesn't count for "show unqualified interactions", but it definitely exists. but again, to your point, such things are not telegraphed well to the player. but suffice to say i don't think i've ever played a priest variant where i was truly forced into an uncharacteristic dialogue option (this does mean giving up on certain "optimal" quest resolutions, though).

Unpopular opinion : Booze sucks.

Even worse than a Nazi...Bruce is a T'au!

It's comparable. On occasion I skip the voiced dialogue early though as you're usually faster reading than listening.

Did you just assume a maid as a gendered job title?!! In any case it does surprise me how many people have cleaning services, although I'm sure some can't really afford it in the long run. I'd be very wary of a stranger being near my stuff but I suppose I am paranoid and distrustful of others.

So did you just assume BruceVC's domestic houseworker's gender, you sexist pig? You fit right in with PM Blackface. Disgusting!

So.. Bruce has a maid. No wonder he likes powerful governments. They don't tend to target the rich. LMAO

My problem is your approach to this discussion if that wasn't obvious. Anyway, I think I made my points. Future readers may decide who made reasonable arguments and if "trash", "garbage" and such were the right terms to describe the caster classes and their abilites in Deadfire. In comparison to PoE or whatever you want to compare it to.

Aha...

Priest is arguably the strongest class in PoE1. Only issue is that its support spells are so strong that you ususally don't even have time to deal damages. If you want to enjoy priest main character in PoE1, bring another Priest in your party. It's a spell caster though, so you'll have to micromanage spell casting. For PoE2, I've already told you what you want to do. Just be advised that Priest aren't top tier at low level. In both games, they become beasty with levels.

Sounds great and an important social event.... the majority of human beings are gregarious creatures and we need social interaction with other people . I know I do 🥂 Happy Birthday by the way 🎂

Story twist: This dam explosion terrorist was a game designer on Fallout New Vegas, who was researching and collecting reference material. 😆

I'm sure there's some research that can back up that claim. Just not in this universe...

TB first person shooter

Speedy?!!! you're so insensitive.

DLSS was always software. The hardware that it runs on is used for both DLSS 1.0, 1.9 (unofficial name for Control's implementation), and 2.0. There were statements about supercomputers and AI, but that was never implemented. Developers struggled to implement it on engines that were already well into development, like RTX ray tracing but even worse. At this point it's free TAA much better and actually boosts frame rates. It will probably get to a point where everybody should have some form of DLSS enabled, even if the base resolution is quite high, and the quality is highest.

I honestly don't think you understand market economics, but that's due to the fact that you likely grew in monopoly (at least a visual one) and aren't involved in production. I too used to think that way until I got a small corporate job and saw how a small company owned a large share of their product market. Since then I became very interested in how businesses grow and I will tell you that there are a lot more factors to inequality than Millionaires are bad. I don't know your economic background but I've; by virtue of mine, met people that are housekeepers. They're essentially janitors to rich people, but are payed way more than janitors. That's the market economy, some people have more capital than others and can pay more for services. Now if those services are too expensive, like they're mandated to give them healthcare (which leads to inflated prices because of price inflation) they will likely get a roomba and call it a day. Leftist social programs don't work because they always start from the premise of "Infinite money dumped into this issue will solve it" which is never the case.

Thanks cstanick! I did a little more research, and I found another workaround that seems to do the trick. If I run the game outside of Steam by opening the app itself from the local file, as opposed to running it in Steam, the mouse lag goes away completely. This worked for someone back in 2019 (right after I took a break from the game) and its definitely working for me. Even though I've turned off the Steam overlay and set my language to English, the issue still happens within Steam, so it seems to be a Steam-specific issue. Just happy I can play the game again!

Solasta got a new trailer.

This is my video, made due to the fact GOG Galaxy don't take screenshots in IWD2. I apologize if video is of bad quality, you should be able to twinkle the settings manually,

You "don't like people or characters that don't like themselves and wallow in self pity" but the only character you liked was Grieving Mother? What?

Pallegina was my favorite companion, in large part because I love her accent. OTOH, GM was one of my least favorite companions in PoE1 because I seriously disliked her text only "quest".

I'd rather play the 2012 movie and make controller noises with my mouth.

Wow, I actually disagree with quite a few of them: 1) setting - Deadfire all the way. A more unique, better realised place. 6) companions - I didn’t care about a single companion in Deadfire as much as I did about majority of companions in PoE1. While they probably got more content, a more linear and focused quest progression meant more coherent story arcs. 8) world map - I am torn on that - on one hand I feel that Deadfire’s map is simply more engaging then POE1 one. At the same time it hints at potential that was never quite realised. If it were more interactive with some procedural stuff it would be excellent. As it is it can feel more dead then abstract PoE1 map. 9) cities in PoE1 sucked. Gilded Vale had barely any content in it. Major cities were under developed. Stelwart was great but that’s White March. Neketaka on the other hand is a phenomenal, deep city. Even smaller areas, are better developed then most PoE1 content. 12) dungeons - before DLCs I agree that the game lacked a deep dungeon. However, PoE1 didn’t do great in that regard either, and Caed Nua sucked. Sorry. 15 levels doesn’t mean much, if they are boring, copy/pasted Enemies which I just fought on the surface. 13) I wouldn’t agree that side content of PoE1 is better then PoE2 but if we purely count things listed - sure. Bounties in Deadfire only worked when fought on land, and even so, it’s far to easy to outlevel enemies. 14) VO - Actually, I don’t have stand outs in Deadfire, in the way I had in PoE1. Perhaps it is a result of less engaging narrative and writing IMO. Actor can do far more with coherent story arc, then a small encounter. In addition, I don’t remember bad performances in PoE1, and while PoE2 is good for the most part, there are occasional bad apples. 18) I felt that one thing that suffered from per-encounter system was boss battles. I never found big battles in PoE2 enjoyable, and while megabosses and DLCs did a decent job in raising the stakes, I never quite enjoyed them as rapid, lethal encounters in PoE1 (and IE games)