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Yeah no, here he would just chime in on the discussion very rarely with one post and leave it at that. What was clear from his talks here and elsewhere was that he did not like BG2. As for people here providing guidance, I don't know how many more people needed to write that metagaming is something that is impossible to avoid without making the game pure RNG and that avoiding said metagaming should not be the focus of their development, that having weak character builds is not the end of the world as long as you are able to finish the game with said build, that having trash mobs that give absolutely nothing to the player will make them too annoying and that having no trash mobs will make the world feel empty and that having enemies that hand you your ass on a plate in the opening of the battle is not bad as long as it's rare and not in main quest path and yeah, the health system is convoluted just for the sake of it being convoluted.

We're working on a second swimming pool.

For a lengthy (but arty) and kind of amusing tumblr post: https://at.tumblr.com/elliottkay/dduane-fostertheory-olderthannetfic/c2epp38bmmrd That starts with the premise older lotr illustrations sometimes depict éowyn wearing ridiculously small armour. apart from the problem general sexualisation of the only female character (who really does anything), there’s another hilarious thought: éowyn pretended to be dernhelm, a man. to fit in, she must have worn men’s armor. so the armor in the illustrations is normal for rohirrim.

I just modded a companion to be a Priest of Skaen and was also surprised at how effective his spiritual weapon is. It takes time to cast and doesn't last super long but while it's up it does nice damage.

If not for nukes, theyd be the Europe and Asia rooster.

I mean, you can never have enough long range ammo.

It is indeed... speaking of which, I seem to remember they released another set of songs besides the old boxed set I bought some years ago (2 cd's plus a tentacle stocking to hang over my fireplace for when Chtulhu brings gifts)

People who support Arsenal are so mentally destroyed by the constant disappointment that they take it out on the national team.

Did some companion quests and picked up Regill. Looks like I'll be going against the swarm soon. "The absence of an answer is an answer too" - Stranger in WotR But really, that was set up too much for me to not make that joke. Yeah, I wouldn't dream of stepping on anyone's enjoyment of something or interpretation of something (barring something really dumb, like EEAAO being anti-semitic). If you enjoyed something I didn't or have a different interpretation that's great. I'm glad you had a good time or interesting thoughts. I am a quarter of my life removed from my first PoE playthrough and am not blessed with a photographic memory. I only have the facts of how I felt, not the feelings that lead me to such a conclusion. If you want to know what eating mounds of dry bread is like, eat a crusty loaf of bread without anything else. No matter how good the bread is, your mouth is going to dry out and you may feel it stick in your throat, which is an unpleasant experience. You NEED some water at that point. The writing in PoE was often very dense and narrow tonally, my initial take was that some interactions felt like you were being monologed at by Jeffrey Lebowski or an Aaron Sorkin protagonist without producing anything interesting or memorable.

PoE and PoEII were excellent CRPG with good balance of combat encounters, exploration, and dialogues, while all of them worked together and the player's agency was acknowledged. It was not necessary to minmax in order to complete the game and most things were logical. The opening areas allowed to create the character and to understand the atmosphere of the setting. Though, I do dislike the "Ultimate" update and bloating the critical path of PoEII - it was perfect and reasonable from the start that in order to acquire the best hull you purchase it, instead of hunting down the logs. The final area in PoEII was just long enough with very optional combat, as most of the players (I, at least) would replay it several times in order to see the outcomes of some specific decisions or DLCs. Can't quite remember the Sun in Shadows. I think it was of average combat density? But it was great that I did not have to listen to the last corpse-to-become, not just skipping the dialogue, but actively starting killing him. Laying a couple of traps at his spawning point and opening the combat with a fireball, like in BG, would be nice as well, but I don't think it was possible. I don't quite remember if it was possible to prevent bosses from monologuing in BG1/2, but I used to place traps where they would be. Overall, PoEII was very comfortable to play - you started the combat with a set amount of abilities and full health, no pre-buffing, no post-battle healing, no inventory management. Also, all skill checks in dialogues were static - you can pass them (maybe with buffs and a few items) or you don't, no rerolling until 20. The areas were unique and memorable, with the sizes just enough to explore and not get bored (speeding up the animations was great as well).

Edge of Tomorrow ain't a time travel movie. It is Groundhog's Day with guns. Totally different genre.

Huh, I laughed at @Make a contract with KP's joke. David Lynch is famous for just saying no every time someone asks him to elaborate on the meaning of one of his films. Dune aside, but Dune was directed by Alan Smithee. It is also an answer of a sort, more than it would initially seem. What made Pillars of Eternity so unremarkable, or perhaps boring, for me, is not any one thing, it is a combination of many little things. As far as the writing goes, that is a little more difficult to quantify as I have yet to figure out what I really consider 'interesting' or 'good' beyond a few examples I can point to (one of them would be Neon Genesis Evangelion, which manages to be geniuinely interesting sci-fi, a deconstructionist examination of an 80ies sci-fi staple and a deep examination of depression, need for validation, pressure and loneliness - the director of the series expressed his own personal experiences through the characters, and it shows). I can point to a larger number of things that generally qualify as being well written but do nothing for me: Icewind Dale, Pillars of Eternity, and The Great Gatsby, which already caused groaning in the book thread, but I have to bring it up again, because it has the exact same issue. Reading it was unengaging. It took me longer to go through it's 200-something pages than reading a doorstopper novel generally considered to not be worthwhile by literature experts. Now, the Fitzgerald novel at least I can point to and say that neither the time period nor the social circles it is about are of any interest to me, so that could explain my experience, but ruminations on the existence of souls and the nature of gods, an ancient, lost civilisation and a conspiracy to hide it all? Count me in. There were a handful of interesting moments in Pillars of Eternity. The parts of the main story in Defiance Bay and particularily the visit to the Sanatorium stand out, and when Thaos showed up to conclude the second act, at this point I thought the game would finally rise to its promise, at least in terms of storytelling - and it went back to being what it was before almost immediately. The combat gameplay is a factor as well, as was my experience with the first few patches. I may have mentioned it before, but my first - and only - character that I played Pillars of Eternity with was a Cipher with a blunderbuss. The first couple of patches made my game experience worse in the name of 'balance' - because rogues arguably sucked when the game launched, my Cipher's ability to bypass the unfun combat were tuned down, instead of rogues being made stronger. Why? The only reasonable answer I have is that the designers of the game actually believed their combat to be fun, and for it to be fun, it needed a serious trimming down in options to bypass it more quickly. The idea is preposterous to me, because combat in Pillars is a slog. It feels unresponsive even though it gives much better feedback than other real time with pause isometric games, and the pacing feels off. The graze mechanic, put into the game to give the players a minor success instead of dice rolled miss streaks, like they were all too common in Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale at the lower levels, made the combat feel even worse than better, and again, that is by far and large, based on a feeling. The entire time I played Pillars, I thought the game would play better as a turn based game. Now, if someone actually enjoys the combat of the game, and I am certain there are people who do, then it becomes a much better experience. There are a handful of other game elements that came from the success of the Kickstarter campaign. The stronghold mechanics feel like they were tacked on later, and Twin Elms is a break in pace at a point where the game shold move towards its conclusion. Both came from stretch goals. A number of other Kickstarters with runaway success had the same issue.

No it isn't. You are choosing to interpret as you want. Biden's comments included saying any talks must begin with the Russians being willing to withdraw from all occupied territory. And the Russians immediately rejected that, after which the White House also "clarrified" that talking with Putin made no sense at this time. Macron, in his statements, was also very clear that any negotiated deal must include the Russians being held completely accountable for all their "crimes" in Ukraine. And then the EU FM recently also made a specch in which she stated that Russia must be held accountable for all the damage and destruction it has caused in Ukraine, and that frozen Russian financial assets, including those of private Russians such as the oligarchs, should be used to create a fund to pay for Ukraine's rebuilding. None of this sounds anything like a "softening" to me.

Note that you can get Martial Caster at some point that gives +100% (with BPM) casting speed for summoned weapon. Basically Quickswitch for Summoned Weapons.

Well, who am I to argue with the season? For @Gorth in particular:

Achievements, and before anyone asks, yes, I am fairly serious about that. No way I would have finished my Unfair run without them.

maybe not as likely to enrage the nation as dobbs overturning roe, but am thinking this one could be equal problematic as it releases the pandora's box o' horrible the Court narrow avoided with the bigoted colorado cake maker. commercial speech has always been treated different, but the current Court has weaponized First Amendment religious freedom and speech protections to effective defend historical entrenched values circa the 1860s and 1780s often at the expense o' common sense and even the health and welfare o' the multitude. who were being routine discriminated in 1787 and 1868? everybody but white men. how could such an overt biased standard not make a reasonable person shudder? the lawyers for the plaintiff suggest there is limits as to whom a person engaged in a business transaction may refuse service, but they proposed no specific limits and am not sure how The Court could possible craft a general rule which would clarify as 'posed to confuse. same-sex marriage is enough o' an affront to religious freedom such that the business owner may refuse service, but denying services to disabled or minorities is a bridge too far? why exact? what is the legal argument for distinguishing? we thought the legal reasoning in obergefell were suspect even if am personal in favour o' same-sex marriage. however, obergefell is law and am not sure how this Court pretends it ain't relevant. based on responses during oral arguments, Justices for the majority is considering the religious and artistic freedoms o' the business owner, but am not sure how such invalidates the protections we assume is relevant in other business settings when a person belonging to a suspect class is denied equal consideration. of course you can't fire a person from their job 'cause o' their race, religious beliefs or disabilities, but is possible to deny those same persons business services? and maybe is not ok to deny business to racial minorities and disabled persons but those engaged in a same-sex union is fair game, but if such is the case, what is the reason for the exception? am most concerned this will be another situation where the Court works backwards from a desired conclusion (i.e. allowing businesses to refuse service to teh gayz) and cobbles together a flawed historical analysis to legitimize the illegitimate. with each such new case, the Court undermines american faith in the rule of law. HA! Good Fun!

really? are you not thinking about the draining chant? (still would be absolutely insane if it ever stacked per enemy)

You naughty Sarex Oh boy, in Unfair you can expect archers in random encounters to dish out 2000 damage a round in the late game. It is not a fun experience.

Using Spiritual Weapon on my Berathian/Helwalker PC and man this thing slaps. The +15 accuracy made it very nice from the start of the game but even now that I've started finding late game stuff it still feels strong. Between lightning strikes, turning wheel, and the lash on the sword itself, I hit extremely hard. Getting 100+ hits on squishier enemies is a lot of fun. Feels like all the lashes add up pretty well too. This is my first character I've actually used Lightning Strikes on. Usually would take swift flurry but lightning strikes has actually felt worth it with this build. I'm sure swift flurry still gives spikier damage but there's something to be said for consistently hard hits.

I wasn't that involved in the PoE2 discussion as much (apart from a snarky comment here and there) as I had given up by that point, but I do not see what difference does it make if it's PoE 1 or PoE2? The whole thread in fact deals with metagaming. Josh's excuse for doing away with combat xp and moving it to quests and bestiaries was to give choice to the player to avoid combat encounters and make them not feel like that missed out. That turned out to be wholly unnecessary as you would hit the level cap midway through the game, so it was not like you needed to hunt for xp like in BG2 to be able to hit high levels. Also it wasn't like there were that many non lethal options in PoE, but w/e I think that was maybe the least of the games issues. Wut? You steamroll Pathfinders trashmobs and pick up the loot to sell. I didn't even think about them. Of the many things bad with Owlcats games I would not rank the trash mobs particularly high. So they took a bad system and made it less bad, big whoop. And here I would say that you are remembering what you want to remember. There were plenty of very detailed and well explained post out there.

Can we get it so tbdt you can just hold to take all from the holiday trees like the sap catchers. It's incredibly difficult / annoying to pick each item at times.

Nah, it was probably just another smoking accident although it made some Telegram militants very angry

She was in rare form this episode, admittedly.

This is a very good explanation, why the “sudden” shift. TL;DW. For the western voters, it is much easier to accept further weapon deliveries to Ukraine, if Ukraine shows willingness to negotiate in the future. And regarding guarantees. Of course Russia would need guarantees, after such an abysmal performance of their army. When they’ll be finished by UAF, they will need all king of guarantees, else would Mongolia start to claim their rightful historical territories which were part of their country during Temujin’s reign.

Greatest trailer since Duke Nukem Trilogy, that.

I just went through the Dream On quest. This is my favorite quest in the game, so far, at least. It reminds me of some of the best quests in the Witcher games where they start out as one thing, then they take a dark turn, and at the end you're left with a really difficult decision that's going to leave a nasty taste in your mouth either way. Great stuff!

Maybe they decided to come out of retirement?

The first patch removed stackability it used to stack with the number of enemies (which was super absurd, so they removed it) that's why some old posts assume it stacks.

It's the new ****.

To be fair, BG2 looks like a case of overreaction straight accross the board. Rather than populating some of that wilderness more, they tossed it out entirelly. Speaking overcorrection, I'm sure that "not enough unique loot and magics" was a fairly vocal leveled criticism towards BG1 also, 1999 or not... 1999 was year 3 after Diablo had hit, after all. The lesson though is: You cannot and will not please everyone. One thing I've always been hesistant about regarding Kickstarter and crowdfunding is thus, and it's true: Players often demand what they THINK they want rather than what they actually want for a host of reasons... One of which being, as a simple excerise: Think of some of your favourite games. I'm sure that a lot of those had features that you either didn't know existed before or didn't think you'd enjoy until you actually played the game... Even the IE games themselves, they iterated a lot, with Torment being the most obvious standout example (a game largely based on character study as opposed to stats crunching and dungeon crawling? WTF.) But far from the only one. Both BGs are very different games, as we'd found out too. If you counted "Throne Of Bhaal" as a thirdish sort of entry into that, that's a hugely different experience from both of them too (never liked it, admittedly). Crowdfunding is nice and has lead to a few neat games that otherwise would have never existed. But occasionally then the problem suddenly ain't the publisher with specific demands, it's the crowd. Thus, even if say legacy heroes such as Jon van Caneghem and D.W. Bradley would join forces to collect money for their new dream project (one CAN dream, can one not?), I'd rather back them based on a hopefully promising general vision, as opposed to a new "Legend of Might & Wizardry" or something. If they'd promised to deliver a game just like in the old days, they're naturally going to be judged by that. Tim Schafer had found this out the harder way also, less so Ron Gilbert when he had actually delivered a pixel style adventure game, verbs included, in Thimbleweed Park. With Schafer everybody was thinking DOTT, Grim Fandango or Full Throttle. What everybody got was something a tad differently.

Ain't nobody got time for Alpha testing at our age. I can barely make time for the finished games.

Never even visited any of the apartments after I moved in with Judy.

It's one of the reasons I have played BG1 multiple times, and BG2 once: The entire middle act of BG2 is a linear set of dungeon crawls, aka Icewind Dale:The Underdark anyway (a thing that the original Icewind Dale did better too even without any Underdark, if that makes sense). Plus, BG1 is still a bit like Ultima of old. It's not near as interactive and indepth in terms of simulation (NPC schedules, everything being pickupable and interactive in some way.) The Infinity Engine couldN't do that. But BG1 still simulates the Sword Coast as a place somewhat proper. And like Ultima, traveling from one place to the next, well in Ultima 7 if you're (un)lucky, you may see a wolf or two. It's designed like a place, not as a playground for the player to amass xg and fatloot and never possibly get bored. BG2 meanwhile would demonstrate were Bioware were heading later on: Not simulating worlds, rather D&D theme parks/movie set pieces for all their tightly scripted romances, drama and quests to unfold. No location ever is for you to discover, you hear about it from quest givers (and travel there via a click of the mouse). Every location equally serves a purpose to that quest. Gone are the forests that would exist because they're... forests. Gone too are the huts in that forest that would equally exist, because they're huts in the forest. If there was a hut in BG2, you knew beforehand there was soemthing going to be inside. BG2 unfortunately has influenced much since. It wasn't until Kingdom Come Deliverance came along that an RPGish game reminded me of BG1 again (or in some respect, Ultima, for that matter.) That magic stuff was still rare in BG1 too, similar that it could take you hours to even get gear that doesn't break due to the game's lore actually being incorporated into the gameplay, as opposed to a readme.text or cutscene, contributed equally to making it my favourite of the two to this day. Stuff is so plentiful in BG2, it feels cheap. It's the kind of thing that previously only ever existed in Diablo action RPGs, where the entire core loop is rewarding the player as much as can, so that ideally he doesn't even consider turning the damn computer off to take a break. Like a slot machine where you put the coin into, and eventually you know there's gonna be some reward. The entire thing reminds me of the Realms Of Arkania series, actually. The first two games had a travel system that was quite elaborate and micro-intensive. Characters needed clothes (shoes would go even go bust after a while), food, could get sick so you needed somebody who could cure and find herbs -- and the resting system of assigning jobs to party members was actually a big inspiration for the Expedition series (Vikings et all) and Kingmaker/WOTR alike. Owlcat have publicly stated as much. But as back then there was (expectedly) a vocal portion of the playerbase who deamt it all "boring" and "time-consuming", they took it mostly out for the third game, "Shadows Over Riva". Nowadays the main designer admits it was a mistake. As what they were doing may not have been to everbody's taste -- no surprises, as even the slower paced RPGs at that time were mostly about nonstop questing and combat and no "downtimes" in between. But it was something special that nobody did. And it still influences, unless countless other games released at the same time. Such as Owlcat. Their resting system alongside having a travel is one of the reasons why I picked up Kingmaker back then.

2022-01-04 Improvements to Conversation, Quest & GlobalScript references in the GameData editor: Will now displayed the name of referenced object rather than the ID. Clicking the row will now open a selector popup (previously these were not editable at all). Context menu includes a "Open in New Tab" option. Will no longer appear nested in a GuidString property* ->

Willow wasn't.. outrageously disappointing. At least, the first two episodes are just focused on world building and setting things up and for what they are do that job competently. The style, clothes, and look all work well. You have a bunch of decent actors doing a professional job, but I have to admit nothing has managed to grab me in a rip-roaring swashbucklery fantasy adventure feel yet. It's interesting to see how much they've veered away from the ideas of the sequel trilogy Chris Claremont wrote with George Lucas' input back in the early 90's for this show. But I do feel they've missed an element by not working in the "Willow Ufgood? Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time..." line. I'll probably watch at least another couple of episodes to see where they go with it and see how the mood catches.

Yeah, I don't know exactly what KP meant when he said that, but it's pretty difficult for me not to agree completely with him. Don't remember being interested in or even slightly fond of even a single character or quest narrative throughout the entire duration that I played. I don't think it was an issue of "hey, these writers don't know how to write sentences or paragraphs competently, or how to string a back and forth dialogue together", but more that I was not at all invested in any of it and there was just nothing even really small that was interesting for my brain to grab hold of to motivate me to keep going forward. There's a lot of garbage quests in BG1 that have bad gameplay - one that jumps out in my mind right now is "go get the dead cat from the waterfall for the little girl". The gameplay around that is literally...you talk to the little girl once, she tells you to go find her cat, you walk up the hill, pick up the cat, bring it back down and give it to her. In terms of gameplay, that's really quite lousy. But...the oddball way she resolves the dialogue after you bring back the cat's body with her being completely unphased by her beloved cat being dead because she'll just get her dad to revive it is enough for my brain to go "huh, that was weird and interesting" and remember it from then on. Meanwhile, I'm trying to remember...just a single character or line of dialogue from what I played of Pillars of Eternity, and I got nothing, it was all so...incredibly unremarkable and functional in nature. Maybe I didn't get deep enough in to give it a chance to get its footing, but both the BG games and PST did so much more to pull me in within the first few hours than the twenty hours I put into PoE. A waste of time for somebody who doesn't understand the opinion, perhaps - not so much the case for those who keenly feel it as well. As it happens, I don't think KP is trying to convince specifically you that your experience with the game was, in fact, bad when you obviously feel different about it. These are opinions all the way down regardless of how you spin them.

Fixed some bugs, thanks @Kvellen for reporting! 2022-01-03 TopicComponent now properly uses the CompanionTopics StringTable Fixed some properties not being initialized when adding a new Component: TalkingItemComponent.ItemGuidString CompanionComponent.CompanionGuidString

https://impakter.com/eu-hosted-gala-party-in-metaverse-how-it-went/ The EU threw a gala in the metaverse... and 6 people showed up.

Thanks for noticing, this was my error and it should not display as percentage. It's now fixed in the latest version! Great, I've given it its own category now. 2022-11-29 Fix StatusEffectLevelScaling display text Move ModScriptHookGameData to its own category ("ModScriptHooks")

this particular devil is a bit more elusive than suggested. am gonna opine label as pacing severe understates the reality o' the issue. as a developer, one need ask the following: what is the necessary levels & powha to complete the game? obvious the player needs be provided enough xp and gear rewards so they may reasonably overcome game challenges, yes? with a game offering considerable optional content, the developer challenge is to try and make so a critical path player is able to finish but a completionist don't hit the level cap too soon. not as ez as a few might surmise. 'course you may always add infinite or functional limitless levels, but then you got the problem o' the completionist becoming so disproportionate powerful the late and end game challenges become underwhelming, which results in different but equal predictable complaints. remove xp awards for optional content is a reasonable and rational solution, but not a practical one as fans dislike not being properly rewarded for their in-game efforts and level scaling foes is problematic at best. ok, now add dlc such as treasure o' the midnight isles... is the same/similar problem as is excess gold/money for the completionist. the critical path player needs have enough money to buy useful gear from stores, but a player who does everything in the game is gonna predictable have more money than the critical path player, correct? if gear impacts player powha, then a player with more money is necessarily gonna have more powha. the game, balanced so a critical path player may successful overcome challenges, becomes a snoozefest for the player who is overlevel'd and overgeared. predictable the completionist player grouses 'bout how they got millions o' gold/rubbles/whatever and nothing 'pon which to spend. so, what is the level cap solution? dunno. before they released pillars of eternity, the obsidian developers insisted they had a solution to disparate xp rewards for critical path players v. completionists. absent per-kill xp grants and the like, there were obvious a bit more flexibility available to the obsidian developers than is the case for owlcat, but obsidian failed to achieve meaningful results in spite o' the fact it were a stated goal to minimize the gulf 'tween casual and hardcore player experiences. aside, is the advent and popularity o' computer games which created this problem. sure, the old d&d 1e monster manual had xp values for critters, but it were never intended that each critter kill and lock picked were resulting in individual xp gains. in point o' fact, d&d xp rewards were s'posed to happen only after the completion o' an adventure and were the result o' a kinda kinda gestalt analysis. following the adventure, the dm would come up with party and player xp rewards custom tailored to how those players overcame obstacles, then the player would "train" and potential level-up 'tween adventures. years o' regular weekly pnp d&d gameplay would possibly get you to double-digit levels in 1e. mega dungeons and computer games in particular changed the xp equation and not necessarily for the worse. unquestionable different. the thing is, every solution we has seen so far either didn't work or were hated by players. bg2 is a good example o' fail as thac0, saves and spells learned/known don't improve past a certain point in d&d, so all you got at level-up were a hit point or two. people complained. d&d solution were to stop providing additional power with subsequent gained levels.as a fix, tob added sooper powers to bg2, which had people complaining. etc. HA! Good Fun! ps, the biggest problem with wotr alignment is alignment. pathfinder using d&d legacy alignment and owlcat making it a crpg mechanic is a mistake. make good, evil, law and chaos objective quantifiable and then integrate the resulting morality axis as a game mechanic were stoopid from the inception. is only possible to mitigate the stoopid, which is hardly an ideal outcome. pathfinder needs an alignment exorcism as 'posed to a fix.

I'm not sure this is a display bug, but it seems that the PowerLevelScaling Value is actual number that increases, instead of % rate. For example, as shown in the attached file, the UI shows "+20% Value per Power Level" since I set ValueAdjustment to 20, and the Base Value is 200, so the 200-pt All Damage Shield of Beetle Sheel should scale with +40-pt per Power Level. However, I've tested the change and I noticed that the Shield effect increased by 20 per PL, which is the actual number I've input into the ValueAdjustment. I'm not sure whether this is just an exceptional case; Does this happen only in case of Damage Shield effect?...

Here you go: Every Invocation that works has that little spellshaping symbol attached to it. But the upgraded ones suffer from a little UI bug, so I marked them green for you.