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So I did a little test : Casting Blizzard with Common +1 Wand and Common +2 grimoire in hand, and then again but with Fine weapon/grimoire instead. BUT my second weapon set had Fine +0 mace/shield, which probably screwed my test. That second Fine set screwed my test. My armor is also FIne +0. RESULT: The damage was the same versus spiders Tier 2 with 2 pips (so 2.2 you could say). Damage was 15 all the time, even against inanimate objects. UPDATE - NEW RESULT : but by removing my second set of Fine gear, the Common +1 wand and Common +2 grimoire were doing only 5 damage with the same Blizzard spell. This is quite a difference ! Note that I also tried with Common armor, but one set Fine weapon/shield, and my spell damage remained 15, so Fine tier nonetheless. CONCLUSION : evidently, as Patronkus said here, the game looks at your equipped gear (best of both weapon sets) to determine your comparative tier for offence. So even if your grimoire is Common, if you have your best tier equipped in the other weapon set, you are good to go. Armor did not affect my spell damage in this test, but maybe the game does consider it (?).

There were no NATO troops (except during annual Rapid Trident exercise which has organized since 2013, when about 6000 troops from NATO and African countries trained with Ukraine's troops for a week) before current invasion and even possibility for NATO troops were close to zero and Ukraine joining NATO was even more unlikely. Invasion itself made idea of NATO troops in Ukraine a possibility that could actually happen. So I don't see that would prevent subsequent ones as blocking NATO troops was not one of the goals that Russia tries to achieve with the invasion. Invasion made it possible that Finland and Sweden joined NATO. Support for NATO in Finland was in 2018 less than 23%, 2021 it was 26%, in 2022 after Russia started their invasion it jumped to over 70%. In January 2022 less than 40% of members of Finnish parliament supported joining NATO, in March support had jumped to over 90%. Finnish Government Defence Report from 2021 estimated that NATO support in Finland could reach 50% in 2040 if Russia continues its power politics and Russian parliament members continue to threated Finland. So if Russia didn't want NATO to expand, they choose option that caused opposite effect, quite predictably Russia warned against NATO deploying troops in Ukraine in 2021 and said that is their red line, but at that time Russia itself was already moving its troops to Ukraine's border for "military exercise" which ended as invasion to Ukraine in 2022. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56616778 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/2/russia-warns-nato-against-troop-deployment-to-ukraine https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/putin-says-nato-troops-in-ukraine-would-be-a-red-line-for-moscow Although Ukraine wanted NATO to hasten its membership because it feared that Russia may invade https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/06/ukraine-pressures-nato-for-membership-as-russia-amasses-troops-at-border Russia was also against NATO countries supplying Ukraine https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/22/russia-accuses-west-of-fuelling-hysteria-over-ukraine-tensions https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/30/russia-will-act-if-nato-countries-cross-ukraine-red-lines-putin-says Although Russia did say that they brough troops to Ukraine borders as response against non specified NATO threats https://www.euronews.com/2021/04/12/g7-calls-on-russia-to-cease-provocations-on-ukraine-border There was also speculation that everything has been just to increase gas prices in Europe and get approval for Nord Stream 2 https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-shmyhal-nato-russia/

Dear Obsidian, I have a suggestion on how to make the combat a bit more flexible. While playing Avowed I found that as much as ther is exciting freedom in combining your weapons and magic, there is no possibility to parry with any dual weapon scenario (only sowrd and board and two handers). Please consider adding a seperate parry button/action, so that every melee weapon, regardless of secondary is able to parry. You have character abilities dedicated to this function, it is just such a shame it is so restrictive at the moment. I am imagining a dagger+sword rogue or sword+pistol pirate and it would be great if such setups would allow for parry and not only dodge as defensive non-magical option. On other note, I really enjoy your game so far, thanks and keep up the good work !!

I came here wondering. If Obsidian made an avowed guide/lore book similar to the likes of Skyrim or FO3 would you guys buy it? I’m personally very interested in the idea. A book that would tell you where to find ingredients or hint at secret spots without giving them away. Lore on the Envoy and the living lands in general. My time in the game has felt like a modern day oblivion (the highest compliment) and I’ve loved every second I’ve had.

Russia in NATO would be funny, Russians having to switch their kit to STANAG

Showing Trump and Bibi sunbathing disqualifies anything from 'looking nice'. Not quite as bad as the ethnic cleansing though.

n1ck_knack wrote (in the update you mention) : "the game calculates your character's tier is by simply picking the highest tier out of your first loadout, second loadout, and armor. Whatever item has the highest tier is what the game chooses when comparing you against the enemies." Example: you can have in hand a Common grimoire, but have a Fine weapon in your second loadout (not in hand), and you are therefore Fine tier. For players reading here : That said, upgrading your grimoire gives casting bonuses (reduced cost & cooldown). Upgrading weapons still boost their damage/stun. BUT you will not be hit by the tier buff/debuff if at least one item equipped is high enough tier (even if not in hand).

With Avowed, something I've realized is that I think for a lot of people, the only RPG they've spent much time on is in fact Skyrim. There was a Sports Illustrated (?!) preview of Avowed that I found baffling, because it was written by an e-sports commentator who only does RTS's, who admits in their preview that the only RPG they've ever played Skyrim, didn't like it, and their preview of Avowed was "this is kind of like Skyrim... which I didn't like. If you like Skyrim, maybe you'll like it." (I don't mind people having their specialties and genre likes, but for goodness sake, please have some basic familiarity with the genre you're trying to cover for a job. Hilariously, I can't find the article anymore, it only exists on internet archive, so either they or their editor realized what a hack job it was.) But the more social media commentary I see, the more I see people who are like that journalist where I'm starting to realize they literally have no other frame of reference for an RPG. Whether they like Avowed or don't like Avowed, it's in the context of "it's like skyrim in this way... and that's bad/good" or "it's not like skyrim in this way... and that's good/bad." There are literally other ways to make RPGs. "NPCs in Avowed don't have their own day to day schedules" my brother in Christ most cRPGs do not do that.

here's the video link: the youtuber in question had an update and apparently by their findings it's not average, it's literally just the highest tier out of your loadouts and armor. so this would match with your theory. so higher armor only matters insofar as it's better than other stuff you got. so for casters, you can get away with just upgrading armor.

#freeluigi

Check this thread out: There's at least one mod that adds a new armor model to the game: https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/373

Doesn't really seem like the lesser, Russia isn't going to occupy the whole country, unless they're keen on breaking themselves. Sort of funny how it's peace at any cost, just to give Trump a win. As for US economic interests being security guarantees, ehh, US isn't all that reliable just on that And it's a bit more than SM posturing when you give documents to people and demand they sign it immediately, and other official actions Text of agreement. I am curious of corruption with this fund, but on the US side. https://archive.ph/Zs2Zr

Thank you for your input, dear Sir. I actually think that Avowed does combat better than Fromsoft games, but I can see that a lot of people would probably disagree with me, because those games have a very hardcore fanbase. Dark Messiah of Might and Magic and Dishonored and Prey seem good examples, which Avowed probably has a lot of similarities to. I honestly don't know how they could've made the combat, given the premise of having tactical CRPG combat merged with action-oriented first-person gameplay, any better. Positioning, line of sight, crowd control abilities, all of this plays a role in combat and I think they really made the right choices in balancing as well, which is the most important part (giving the right weight to all of your actions). I am not understanding the criticism of the progression system being not compelling. I feel like it serves the combat system as it is and does so very well. Like I mentioned before, because it is designed as an RPG, it needs to have a progression, which means higher difficulty mobs, which means you need to be able to upgrade your gear. And how you upgrade your gear was directly linked to the exploration and parkour system, which I like. I tend to compare the game with Skyrim, because Obsidian said multiple times that this was intended to be a Skyrim-like game. And if you do so, all these things I just mentioned, Avowed does better than Skyrim. I feel that the upgrade system is also just complex enough so you wouldn't be bothered by it too much. No skill grinding, as you had in Skyrim, for example. I think Avowed is very streamlined and so is the upgrade system. Maybe this is a new kind of gamedesign philosophy, or maybe it's an old one, but it feels like they made the right choices here, atleast to me.

I noticed that I had 56 essence, and even with a -65% essence cost Grimoire, I wasn't able to cast, for example, Missile Salvo, which should cost about 26 essence with this Grimoire. Is this a bug?

EDIT: Sweden can now feel warm embrace of US as ally and trade partner, as US is seeking to block Sweden from selling Gripens to Columbia as they want that Columbia buys F-16 from USA instead. https://www.infodefensa.com/texto-diario/mostrar/5194032/029-colombia-estados-unidos-vetara-venta-componentes-gripen-colombia . Saab clearly made big mistake when they decided to buy jet engines from USA instead of making their own or buying them from France/UK, now US can block all their sales of Gripens.

But what else would you expect, the US and the West was never going to deploy troops directly into the conflict? And if the US now has vested economic interests in Ukraine its more likely Ukraine will maintain its sovereignty once the war ends. Its unlikely Russia will invade Ukraine again if the US has these massive economic investments The war has to end, I assume we all agree on that. And I think how it will end is Ukraine will agree to not join NATO and they will accept they have lost the illegally annexed areas like Donbas and Crimea I think this minerals agreement is the lesser of 2 evils and it is better for most Ukrainians than living under Russian occupation or Russian economic control

Armor being included into offense calculation seems to be assured. There was an unlisted video that got shared with me where the guy definitively shows him changing armor (and only armor), and getting a skull difference on his test target and his black bow ends up doing different damage. Im heading to bed but ill try to remember to link it here tomorrow.

It is definitely unintuitive. In the abstract I get it in the sense that everyone themselves has a “quality level” (normal, fine, exceptional, etc) and it means that casters do not get to bypass having to invest in gear. It happens with weapons in D4 and D3 (maybe other ARPGs) after Diablo 2 had tons of gear that was irrelevant for casters, so it’s not totally foreign to me, but adding armor into the mix is definitely new.

Duel-wielding is not practical especially when using a mouse, theres only 1 function when using both weapons at once and thats if you can get them both to activate at the same time, i mean its almost like blinking you have to click both buttons on the mouse that precise or only 1 weapon swings, only way to really use it is to alternate left and right back and forth and thats hard to manage when theres 15 things on you and you have to watch out for a cliff and your hp is dropping and your companions go down even 1 hand and a shield isnt that practical its hard to distinguish an enemies swing to block or parry when theres a dozen of them, i think parry or block indicators like in ryse son of rome would help them be more functional in battle other wise youre in the dark with it and theyre all stacked on top of each other other than than the game is fun and looks good but its quests and story line are under whelming, i hope theres dlc in the future with more in depth and longer quest chains and its not like 75% cinematics, long cinematics are fine but not when quests are very short, makes it feel like im watching an interactive movie, alot of watching compared to gameplay

Yeah that's kind of what I'm currently considering. Initially, my main issue with Shifter was that it's actually worse than other druids during the shift, without spellcasting. Even if you're not going to spend much time of the shift casting spells, being able to cast a quick healing spell, or renew an ongoing buff or aoe spell is really nice, and it hurts to lose that playstyle / convenience after going through the first Pillars where it was possible, even with a shifting-focused druid. But after exploring some other options, and looking at what people say (over there on reddit as well), I think I'm fine with the idea of no spellcasting while shifted (for a Shifter), if we make shifting itself much better and more flexible. We just cannot do both (allowed spellcasting AND flexible shifting) as it would require some alternative penalty for this subclass, such as removal of at least some (if not all) bonus subclass spells - and that is a little too much. Also, someone raised a valid point that with allowed spellcasting and unlimited shifting, it would become better to just always stay in a beast form and basically be a faster and more tankier druid, while casting spells - and it would also remove some of the theme and actual fighting purpose of the beast forms. And on the other hand, there's still a problem of armor and weapons PL bonuses not persisting through Spiritshift, and unless we fix that (which is a monumental task in the scope of the whole game, unless we tackle only a few most important items), it will still be better to drop the form to gain the increased PL and cast spells. So it's kind of not here nor there. But if we keep not allowed spellcasting, and make shifting unlimited, then you can always drop the form, cast the spells and shift back. Which is not such a huge penalty anymore - and more importantly, at least for me, doesn't make you lose the current beast form (for the remainder of the fight) if you have to cast a quick spell - which was one of my issues with the subclass. So this is where I am; I'm fine with no spellcasting, if Shifter has an actually better shifting. And when I say better - it should be much more flexible, and without limitations - not that the beast forms themselves should be MUCH better. We don't want to make druid a better fighter than other martial classes. As other martials have their different niches, Shifter could be able to adapt to the combat situation, by choosing the right form - with similar features to other classes maybe, as needed; and be able to switch between them back and forth. As an example how it would it work, - start the combat with some spells, shift to Cat form to deal with casters - then shift to Bear form and off-tank a little bit - then switch to Stag form to deal with a pack of enemies - then switch to caster form, renew some spells, cast some healing - switch back to Bear form - as maybe your main tank died - wait until you get healed back up and main tank gets revived - switch back to Cat form to deal with a boss

A Spiral Found at the Solar System’s Edge—And It’s Full of Surprises

I'm having a very similar issue. I fought the dreamthralls, but then cannot enter the city. The objective still states i need to kill them dreamthralls, but they are all dead. Additionally, the waypoint for the quest sends me to some random spot way across the map. I submitted a ticket and they got back to me saying it will be patched soon.

On RTX3070 it run fine enough for me to not investigate things further. It is a demo, so I am also not worried about optimisation at this point. If it used upscaling, I wouldn't mind anyway. I always turn it on anyway. I didn't finish the demo - couldn't figure out where to fine an NPC necessary to progress the story, and went back to playing Avowed. It... Well, from what I tried it plays how I remember Gothic playing. I certainly like it more than the pitch demo a while back, but I also wouldn't be opposed if they took some hinds from more modern action RPGs, like Dark Souls - afterall it's meant to be a remake not a remaster. As it is I am not sure how appealing Gothic Remake will be to new audiences. But hey, we will see once the game comes out.

Yeah, that'd be a different kind of experience. I think the first Pillars in particular had quite a bit of combat though, moreso before the first patches that tried to get rid of the Owlcat-style filler trash. Unlike Owlcat, Obsidian took the criticism they got serious for their next game. I find it amazing that so many RPGs are this focused on combat in general. That's nothing against combat, still love Icewind Dale and the like. But... at times you get the impression an extra amount of it is only inserted as the notion is that else people with shorter attention spans would switch off. Warhorse too argued it would be a major risk to have this little (mandatory) combat in Kingdom Come -- lots of quests build around "mundane" activities in general, including learning how to read. This singular focus on violence else is really fascinating though. It makes projects such as KCD or Disco Elysium stick out from the crowd as soon as they hit the market. Bit of a stereotype, but with game/RPG development being less dominated by males, and game audiences also becoming older and broader, it's interesting that violence is still such a huge part of most RPGs. That's in parts why the original Fallout was such a revelation. A game allowing you to flee from a lot of (random) encounters, not even engage with them, and being able to convince the BIG BAD at the end of the game to reconsider his plans. And even the Realms Of Arkania trilogy (based on the German Dark Eye / Das Schwarze Auge Pen&Paper) had less combat than contemporary D&D games at that time. Mind you, there was still a good number of it, including traditional dungeon romps. But it also had sort of CYOA text adventure sections / choices way before Pillars did them -- some of which allowed you to sneak around a few encounters if the following skill check went through. Speaking of which, these text sections don't cost the world and could also bolster a possible Pillars tactics game without making the budget skyrocket. Even Owlcat went with them.

I absolutely LOVE both PoE1 and PoE2. I supported their crowdfunding and everything about them. But I would have zero interest in a Pillars Tactics game (or any "Tactics" game). In (C)RPGs, it is precisely everything other than combat that I love and value about the game, and the combat part is something to be tolerated so as to get to enjoy all of those other things. As such, if the game is all (or mostly all) about the combat, there isn't anything there for me.

Thanks that might be it. I will check! Thanks for the reply and sorry Im a bit slow.

Agree with all of these so far hopefully Obsidian will give it the same attention cdprojektred gave Cyberpunk 2077, it needs love like a garden needs tending.

Hm, looks like a dark creepy stalker type thriller ... (review quotes later in trailer) "FUNNIEST THING I'VE SEEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE" "HILARIOUS" --- I'm confused. And intrigued.

Nah, considering the recent elections, were going to have to team up with Russia to give them damn nazis another smackup.

I don't want to make a new thread for it, and this one seems to be the most active, so I'll just ask here... Is it possible to add new armor / weapon models to the game? Was wondering if it'd be feasible to add the unique weapons from Avowed into Deadfire.

I was out of town, so I have to be twice as fast downloading to catch up.

That's a lot of downloading for a demo.

https://www.gog.com/en/game/neverwinter_nights_doom_of_icewind_dale Neverwinter 1 received one more module, which follows the story of Neverwinter Hero.

Honestly, Obsidian did this with New Vegas and classic fallout and even if it's a little on the nose, i love it. It acknowledges old fans, it makes the world feel consistent and it goes a long way to introduce new fans to older titles, because they can smell when there's lore. How many people went from New Vegas to Fallout 1 and 2? I'm hoping a similar things is about to happen with avowed and pillars and i'm so here for it. Overall i don't think it's really that different an audience as people make it seem between mainstream and non mainsteam cRPGs. I think that if you aren't old, "modern" rpgs can be a gateway to classic cRPGs, at least that was my own story back when i was younger and played new vegas.

It's not the game we deserve, it's the game we need.

I thought they said Deadfire kept selling and by now has sold a good amount of copies. Personally I like poe2 a lot more than poe1. However, if they ever do a poe3, I really hope it will have some slight pirate or at least spanish colonial feeling again.

I just rewatched EuroTrip.

Damn, I just rewatched Buffy. Feels weird.

Man, that's terribly young.

It doesn't have to be part of the agreement for that to happen. Trump can send- or not- stuff without it being formally mandated- and it doesn't seem like much is formally mandated, certainly not with any great detail. The obvious answer is that no NATO and no troops removes the reason for the invasion; so there won't be subsequent ones. It's clearly not something Putin was actually keen on given it took him 23 (or 15, though that was clearly not anywhere approaching full scale) years to invade in the first place. (That's one of the issues with assigning blanket motivations as if people are cartoon villains: a cartoon villain Putler bent on expansion for the sake of it would have invaded Ukraine far earlier. A cartoon villain probably would have invaded the Baltics before they joined NATO too, not stopped short of Tblisi in 2008 and a bunch of other things. There wouldn't be a Belarus, wouldn't be a Kazakhstan, wouldn't be an Armenia and as a consequence almost certainly wouldn't be an Azerbaijan. One of the great ironies is how Clinton seemed like a good President at the time but so many of his decisions turned out to be garbage in retrospect, including expanding NATO without any accounting for Russia- something he was repeatedly warned about by people like George Kennan. If you want(ed) Ukraine in NATO, you should (have) invite(d) Russia. Couldn't have that though, then Europe might realise they didn't need the US.)

Not sell Ukraine to Russia? Not blackmail Ukraine? Not put Ukraine greater sanctions than German Empire got after WWI? US already had vested economic interest to Ukraine. Considering that over half of the minerals US wants are in areas controlled by Russia, they would need to send their troops to get they want. They aren't illegally annexed if they became legally part of Russia, then annexation is internationally accepted. Agreement is poor and unjust which will lead destabilization and longer conflict, even if conflict changes its form. Also NATO seems to be breaking over this decision, considering that NATO countries look new forms of alliances because they can't trust that NATO works. This outcome seems to be certain regardless of what else happens. EU countries are looking to increase their nuclear arsenal, they are looking new military alliance that will coordinate European defense, which will take role of main coordinating body from NATO. EU looks if they can get closer trade alliance with China, India and South America, because they can't trust US. Also why Russia would not invade Ukraine again, especially after Ukraine is demilitarized and there will not be any troops that are would prevent Russia from taking the Ukraine when they want? Or do you think that Russia will somehow drop two of their core demands (demilitarization of Ukraine and no NATO troops in Ukraine)?

Robert Orci

Roberta Flack

Uhm, this, apparently. (I may be dumb, will check on it again tomorrow.)