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Phoenix Point writing: "The Pure are planning to attack a Synedrion research facility! We have to stop the attack!" "OK, we are here. What's the plan to defend this place?" "Kill all the attacking Pure. And to be sure they can't attack Synedrion in the future, also kill all Synedrion defenders. Can't attack someone if they are already dead." "God, Boss! Your logic is infallible as always!"

Divinities are not isometric (rotating 3D camera), has turn based combat and full multiplayer support. Sven Vince himself pointed out that after looking at telemetrics the overlap of Divinity and PoE players is rather small. Thus the conclusion "Divinity did well and Deadfire did poorly - therefore Deadfire did something wrong" is somewhat flawed. I mean it can still turn out to be true that Deadfire did something wrong obviously - but the aforementioned causal connection is not very strong.

ah you're right. i assume 2x salvation of time, which is long enough to end most fights without needing to worry about a re-proc.

GOGkey for Seven: Enhanced Edition free on Humble

Back home now, met with the doctor. Got the papers to prove it. Doctor was fun; "Wow, you're tall!" "Ofcourse that would've hurt, you're really tall!" "Well, you're quite tall, so about two metres then?" I believe it's quite official, she deemed me very tall. So I'm tall. I just hope that's not what she writes in the papers 🤣

Mortars: If you are a Streetfighter then dual Mortars will be great. They are also great with an Assassin but the way to Vanishing Strikes is more fun with a Streetfigher since he can use mortars/blunderbusses to great effect even before he gets to Power Level 9. The AoEs get backstab bonus dmg as long as the targets are not further away than 2m. Since CP Backstab is not related to the base dmg of the weapon but is an additional fixed raw dmg per attack roll, you can stand in the midst of enemies and AoE-Backstab a lot of them with the mortar shots. Powder Burns makes shure you also trigger "Heating Up" in order to get higher Sneak Attack and very short reloading times for the mortars. If you use Vanishing Strike as soon as you are bloodied you'll get even more out of it (because then you'll also have a lot higher crit damage). Since your INT is already very high the mortar's AoE size will also be very big which is a good synergy. Here's what it looks like if you don't even use Gambit (which would be even better) but only Vanishing Strikes with dual mortars + Backstab + Community Patch as an Assassin: Melee: Sun & Moon: it's dual heads should grant two Backstabs per swing I reckon. It's also fast like all flails. It's great with Gambit because you'll have two chances to crit with only one swing (because dual head). Sungrazer can be used with an Assassin + Vanishing Strikes to great effect. Extinction Event can trigger often because the Assassin gets +25 ACC for all his attacks under Vanishing Strike which leads to a lot of crits which naturally will kill some enemies. This will trigger Extinction Event which will profit from all the dmg bonuses like Sneak Attack, Assassinante and Deathblows, Legendary etc., too. It does enormous AoE damage then. A setup with Sun & Moon + Sungrazer can work nicely with Full Attacks: Sun & Moon brings the enemy down and Sungrazer can already crit-kill. Also very good with Finishing Blow (it takes som time to get to Gambit after all). Stalker's Patience will be good, Rust's Poignard is also good since both are accurate weapons and come Legendary. Stalker's Patience should be worn in the offhand because the recovery-skipping enchantment is of no use if you do Full Attacks like Gambit as long as the spear in in the main hand. Because the main hand's recovery get skipped anyway with Full Attacks like Gambit. This is a bit counterintuitive though because normally you would want the faster weapon (here: Poignard) in the offhand. Like the flails both would not be my only pick though - because they only have one damage type (pierce). Actually a setup of Sun & Moon + Sungrazer in one weapon slot and Poignard + Stalker's Patience in the other would be good. Scordeo's Edge is absolutely great because of Adaptive (ACC for gambit) and Blade Cascade (high benefical effect duration is also great here). You can't guarantee Blade Cascade though and often I find it to micromanagement-intense to look at my guy all the time if Blade Cascade already triggered or not and how long it's gonna last and so on. But of course it's supergood when under the effect of Vanishing Strikes. I would combine it with a Battle Axe + Bleeding Cuts because that's just top of the pops if you can skip recovery altogether. Then you would have a good crushing setup (2 flails), piercing setup (stiletto + spear) and slashing setup (sabre + battle axe). You can also do something like 1. setup with Scordeo's Edge + Sun & Moon, 2. setup with Scordeo's Edge + Rust's or so. Other good weapon setups when using Vanishing Strike (+ Gambit) with CP Backstab: Pukestabber: fast weapon, accurate, higher dmg, 20% higher action speed with all dagger attacks + Marux Amanth: fast weapon, accurate, +2 PEN at the start of combat for 20 sec base, chance of AoE attack. Use with Blackblade's Hood. Rust's + Azure Blade: fast, good enchantments, Mob Rule grants +15 ACC with Azure Blade which is great and leads to more crits - but you have to be quite near to 3 allies! But summons/animal companions count afair. Also use Blackblade's Hood. Keeper of the Flame + Xoti's Sickle with maxed Religion: the dmg bonus of the sickle can climb up to +60% iirc with high Religion - the speed bonus when standing near killed enemies is also great with high Religion. Keeper of the Flame does neat AoE damage with maxed Religion and you can get a small ACC boost - so why not? There is no "best" weapon setup in general because it often depends on the enemies you are facing. For example gainst risen undead, skeletal warriors or flame blights Rust's would be useless while Sun & Moon would be great. Having all three damage types at your disposal is a good way to use the optimal tool against any given enemy. In some instances it may be even best to use Animancer's Blade or Eccea's Arcane Blaster (since raw damage). Underpenetration is such a severe malus to your dps that it's nearly always batter to switch ot another dmg type that can penetrate instead of clinging to on weapon with a supposedly op enchantment. Against vessels you should use Grave Calling with Chilling Grave since it's the best against them. The Chillfogs it produces are foe-only and will get all the damage bonuses, too. THey will produce furhter Chillfogs on kill and get Backstabs. And so on. You see there's no clear "best" in general. Full Attacks with a ranged/melee mixed setup tend to be rather bad with Full Attacks because only the appropriate weapon for the current range will be used and not both weapons. Better have one melee and one ranged setup and switch if need be. By the way: If you want to be even faster than naked you should wear an armor like Miscreant's Leather + a pet like Abraham or Cutthroat Cosmo. That combo of recovery reduction and armor penalty reduction leads to a net attack speed gain compared to being naked. Which means you get more attacks out in a given time. Also make sure to wear Ajamuut's Stalking Cloak because Vanishing Strike allows to stun all enemies then with every attack which reduces deflection by 10 (more crits) and is great anyway. I believe that the Helm of the White Void will also give your attacks +10 ACC in this case because a stun effect is attached. It's a great headpiece to have as a rogue anyway (if you're not using it for a dedicated CC guy already).

Waiting for a doctor's appointment in my car. Have had bad back pain for a few weeks since I tumbled off the yard tractor at work and I want a doctor's certificate to prove that I am unwell and not skipping work for 1. Cyberpunk 2077 2. Not wanting to sit in the gatehouse next week.

There was near exactly the same amount of time between ME1 --> ME2 as ME2 --> ME3 down to the day. Nov 2007, Jan 2010, March 2012; 26 months between games so if ME3 was 'rushed' then logically ME2 was as well. The size of the narrative job was, er, massive for ME3, but that was mostly due to how little ME2 did. Sure, the companion quests were interesting enough, but they'd have been far far better off dropping a few of them and adding to either the main plot of the game itself or better developing the overarching plot by tying it and the game plot together better. The criticism about ME2 is not that it lacked content, but that it lacked relevant content that advanced the narrative overall. I'd also have to strenuously disagree with the conversation direction if only because every ME2 conversation with Miranda was obsessed with posing her ludicrously to emphasise that Yvonne Strahovski is more than averagely attractive. Retroactively hilarious though, given how woke Bioware is now. As for the overarching subplot resolutions- Geth/ Quarians, genophage etc- they had to be resolved in ME3. In theory of course they could have been resolved fully in ME2 to give ME3 less to do but they weren't, for good reason; but then ME2 only added more to the stuff that needed resolving in ME3 (ie the big emphasis on Cerberus, lots of recruitables that were left needing resolution). The resolutions of each subplot in ME3- except Cerberus, caught up in the whole endgame mess- were generally well received, and the reaction if they'd been left out would have been at best strongly negative. It can be argued that ME3 needed more time due to the massive narrative difficulties inherent in tying up the story, but that is equally an argument that ME2 did not do its job properly by leaving too much to be done narratively. If you've resolved nothing in ME2 and only added more then that is part of the problem when complaining that the last game was rushed, and that could have been prevented by cutting some of the peripheral guff from the previous game to streamline things for the sequel. But no, they wanted The Dirty Dozen in space instead...

Going in the hospital for an overnight stay on Tuesday. Ugh. For the past few months I've been having this problem that I've tried to ignore. It starts with tingling in my fingers and progressed to numbness in my hand, then later my whole arm. Finally it got to the point I could not ignore it. So I saw my doctor and then a neurologist. Turns out I have scar tissue putting pressure on my radial nerve in my arm. I was in a pretty nasty car accident over 11 years ago. One of the injuries was a compound fracture on that same arm. Which ended up with a couple of pins in it. Now scar tissue inside causing problems. I was acrually relieved. When the doctor said I needed a nerologist the mind conjures up terrible possibilities. The truth was not THAT bad. But a overnight stay in the COVID factory? Ugh.

Im actually concerned about setting up the tree this year. The two kittens are going to go apes**t when they see it and Ive already been preparing my wife for the losses. "You know those cherished family ornaments?"..."Yes"..."Kiss them goodbye".

When I was a kid, my mom outright told me it was fake when I asked her. So I guess you can tell her that the Grinch is greener on the other side when you get exiled to the Whoville waste dump. And I legit did not know you had a kid, seems my obsidianstalking.txt needs updating.

It was delivered a bit ago. Finally downloaded the driver to try it out. Seems to work, no muss no fuss. A bit lighter weight than the ps4 one (since no wireless battery in it I'd guess), feels ok in my hands for short periods at least. Dunno how durable it will be, but good enough for using with non-Steam games when I want/need. Thanks!

3070s should be in stock by then

Salvation of Time spoiled you.

Given how buggy Cyberpunk 2077 seems to be, going by reviews, anyway, it's a blessing in disguise that I don't have the rig to play the game on yet. At least, that's the lie I'll be telling myself every day I can't buy PC components to make myself feel better.

Thanks! Downloading it now and probably downloading the whole thing all over again on the 9th Hey! I resemble that remark!

Can't wait to not play it and complain about it five years down the line. Like with TheWitcher 3.

I think Sven said the matched somewhere around 40% which is tiny considering the steam pages for both franchises say they both offer the same thing.

I replied to a PM about this - here is my reply: I dug a little more and I believe you could induce the NPCs to use unpackage textures from the data folder, but you would still need to modify the Unity data to specify the texture paths. This data probably lives in the individual level bundles the NPC appears in, and the property is called 'm_textureLargePath'.

Sword of Daenysis + March Steel Dagger: both have speed, giving you great attack speed in combination with Two Weapon Style, both are accurate, both work with the same weapon focus. And you get pierce + slash dmg so you're not completly screwed against pierce or slash immune foes. Cladhaliath + Shame or Glory (both enchanted with Marking) - especially if you are a Paladin with Coordinated Attacks (preferrably a Darcozzi Paladin): the marking enchantment of both do stack when dual wielded which means +20 ACC (+30 as Paladin with Coordinated Atacks, +40 as Darcozzi if you also apply Inspiring Liberation) for the nearest ally who attacks the same target as you (it's sufficient to click for an attack on the enemy, don't need to hit, the intention is enough). This is extremely good gainst tough foes like dragons and so on. The nearest ally gets even more ACC and dmg if he uses a coordinating weapon (like Ravenwing for example). The weapon focus of both is not the same but this is a great support setup and not for dps so it's not an issue. Godansthunyr + Badgrad's Barricade: the hammer stuns on crit which makes a crit with the shield bash more likely which triggers Trhust of Tattered Veils (no limt per encounter). Especially nice on a shield-rogue since ToTV works with Deathblows. Since one is a (bashing) shield you oly need the weapon focus for the hammer. Rimecutter + Last Blade of the White Forge: both have speed and use the same weapon focus. Any vicious weapon (e.g. Dîal Ewn Dibita) with a stunning (Godansthunyr) or proning (We Toki) weapon. The Vile Loner's Lance (has longer interrupts than other spears - kind of a hidden enchantment) with St. Wygelt's Cudgel (-5 Resolve on hit) : more (and longer) interrupts.

Yeah, much as we may dislike Trump that isn't a charge that can be leveled at him. He put a lot of effort into getting a vaccine as quickly as possible- Operation 'Warp Speed'. Of the vaccines that will be available soon they (part) funded the AstraZeneca/ Oxford and Moderna vaccines. The Pfizer vaccine iirc was in fact privately funded in toto Germany had given funding to BioNTech in general but not specifically for vaccine development. That is one of the other reasons to be suspicious of its rapid approval and deployment, it's extremely expensive and the company stands to lose all its development costs if a cheap alternative got to the finish line first.

Hopefully that has the day one patch rolled in.

Seems like pre-load on GoG for Cyberpunk is up, i didn't expect it today! its 60 GB

Strange. This game is filled with mysteries!

It's better than anything you're going to get in a bakery!

Solasta: Crown of the Magister, an DnD RPG, which I am really anticipating a lot, has been announced on GOG as coming soon https://www.gog.com/news/coming_soon_solasta_crown_of_the_magister

Build 2 dew collectors

Some random Yakuza weirdness

I like 'em. I dunno about the traveling merchant idea - just I'm not sure how that would fit into the game lore. But I really love the pulley pallets and clay walls idea. And I totally agree about the lean-to. Seems a little quaint once you build a gigantic fortress.

Like this post only if you get the TV show reference:

You know, even when the actual blind people comment on this one, that "This is the dumbest ****, I've ever witnessed", you know there will be enough entertainment for the next few days... My favourite quote of the day. "Now that the 'blind playthrough' battle is won, we must next go for 'short stories', as I have some vertically challenged friends and it's a major concern in their communities." 🤷‍♂️

I have to admit, I like a lot of the concepts and ideas behind DA2. The story over years, the breaks between chapters, the idea that the city would change depending on your choices... And then the execution of said ideas happened. It was.. serviceable, but then didn't really mean much in the long run. And yes, games re-use assets, it's a thing, and we expect that. But for some reason those rinse-repeat caves were just glaringly obvious and made it feel cheap.

The "Chosen One" or demigod trope is also irritating. Also having a PC that has a history you can't control. Particularly if that history makes them special in any way. From a narrative viewpoint the Courier from FO:NV is the best RPG video game protagonist. They have a back story that is completely opaque. They have travelled and can be expected to have the skills they start the game with, whatever you choose them to be. They can be young or old, good or evil, altruistic or selfish, it all fits. The Lone Wanderer you have a backstory, a relatively set age, and a motivation to enter the main story that are all pretty much chosen for you. Ditto with Nate/Nora in FO4. These are young adults who were well established in life. To roleplay them you are sort of limited by who they are. Yes, I know you can do anything you want but from a narrative perspective you can't. There is nothing special about the Courier. They were not a vault dweller, nor a hero necessarily. They were a regular Waste lander doing a job and got caught up in a larger game. Then did what they did.

My covid test came back negative, so my boss can rest assured that my sneezing is infact because of the cold weather. Other than the nice experience of a temperature drop and rain, nothing going on except for trying to find something to eat besides whiskey.

The whole franchise takes a dark turn if you consider the possibility that the "heroes" may just be murdering hapless cosplayers rather than the elite shock troops that they quite obviously are not...

thanks! the boots work (albeit just a second before vela is able to run over the falling ice LOL), I've already managed to pass that fight in a more risky way using a lot of scrolls and staying near vela with lethandria shield healing cheese, but I will surely try the boots trick next time I have to fight the beast of winter 🙂

I just tested it just to be sure and as expected the Forbidden Fist ability doesn't add stacks of Retribution. Funnily enough Keeper of the Flame's burn damage (which does an attack roll against you) also doesn't add stacks. But if you cast Minor Missiles on yourself (auto-hit, no roll) you do get 5 stacks immediately. So what do we make of this?

I liked exploring Elven ruins in DA:I and figuring out what happened. It's what I liked most about the Dragon Age games, exploring Thedas. I don't care for the combat of any of the three installments. They're all various degrees of serviceable, sometimes okay, sometimes annoying, and in the case of Inquisition occasionally hilarious like when you one-shot a dragon, but were, for me, never the reason to play them.

Generally speaking, when the game says "take damage", it actually means "take damage after rolling for accuracy against defenses". So Blood Mage's Sacrifice won't break Dance of Death, nor does it trigger a heal from Unbending, etc etc, because it never rolled against any defense. DoTs such as a paladin's self-immolation skills, or Forbidden Fist, also don't count as "damage".

I had more issue with the combat than going through the same cave a dozen times in DA2. The biggest problem IMHO was that every single battle, boss battles included, was essentially the same. You meet an initial group of enemies, or a boss. You fight said enemies until a trigger point where another group of enemies spawns all around you literally from nowhere. Lather, rinse, repeat. The only variance was that sometimes there was also a second wave of enemies that would spawn all around you. This also made strategic group formation essentially meaningless. There was no way to set up a meat shield wall to protect your squishy members when enemies would just spawn behind you. Those factors made combat in DA2 get REALLY old REALLY fast for me. When my reaction to a combat encounter is "*sigh* Let's just get this crap over with" then that is a failure of combat design IMHO. To make matters worse, there was a ton of combat.

Just got to the fight myself. In my run, I set the background as having pledged to Galawain and betrayed him (I always do it on purpose to get him to buff the dragon fights.) Right before the fight ensued, our dude Galawain tugged at my soul to let me know I was about to taste his vengeance and what have you. Jadawhatever then had the "Galawain Wrath" buff. So the name of the buff/debuff is not addressed to the dragon, but to the Watcher (if Galawain is angry with the Watcher, Galawain's Wrath buffs the dragon; if Galawain is pleased with the Watcher, Galawain's Favor weakens the dragon.)

I've been away from this forum for about 7 months and hey ho this topic is still going strong! I think I said ages ago, no kickstarter and no barely clothed women on the advertising material is probably the main problem.

Ok, ok, hear me out. This would have the same color scheme as the Marksman's cap and be made using the same material (Crow Feather, Berry leather, Spiderweb/silk) However it's not just more bow damage. Instead the set would focus on stealth, that decreases your aggro range. The design of the armor is as followed, a vest with feather parts around its shoulders that kind of resemble fur, leather shins with the spider silk holding it together and feathers popping out from underneath, and a hood similar to the spider hood but with berry leather instead. The set bonus would be Sniper (far shots do more damage/crit) And here's the kicker, the Marksman's cap would also count towards the set bonus, meaning you can choose between the hood or the cap to still get the bonus! That brings up my second idea: having more sets that work in tandem with each other for the bonuses, giving you some freedom of playstyle.