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Started Outer Worlds 2 (using Gamepass) and played through the tutorial. It was great. The graphics are improved from the original. So far so good. I don't think it will win you over if you didn't like the original, but it seems like a solid sequel so far.

I signed up for a full Ironman with my wife. I did one in 2019 in Santa Rosa and it was pretty miserable. It took me 15 hours. I had a good swim, an ok bike, but terrible run. My stomach was a mess and I walked most of it. Anyways, my wife watched me suffer and has been bugging me for the last 6 years to do one with her. So we signed up for Ironman California, which is in Sacramento. It is still a year away. We volunteered at the race this year and paddle boarded for the swimmers in support. The swim looks amazing, it is downstream and should be fast. It also looks like a fun run snaking around the Capitol Mall. But now that I've paid for it, I'm in training mode, and that is a different lifestyle. I'm not out of shape, but I'll be pretty much doubling my training hours over the next year. It should be fun. I hope I can nail the nutrition this time.

I bought the deluxe edition, beat the tutorial, got no bonus packs. deleted and re-download 3 times, play thru tutorial again and still no dlc. please help, I did give you 100 dollars it would be nice to actually receive some content.

Indeed, it is way better to have a vindictive, narcissitic asshat with the intelligence of a seven year old as POTUS. Or worse, imagine if Biden had become president and stepped aside after his cancer diagnosis, it'd be a mixed race femoid with a weird laugh running the country. Unthinkable.

Sometimes a solid sequel is all we need. Just have more fun of the fun we were already having.

--Mood: crabby, pessimistic, avoidant yet paradoxically also confrontational --Physical state: ok/adequate but maybe typical aging, post-menopausal and other such woes, 57, and oh hey am I finally starting to get slight eye bags and slightly droopy cheeks? Bummer. --Mental state: rut, exhausted, withering --Hubby's health (physical and mental): nothing super dramatic, but not great either. I think a lot about "what if's" lately. --Reason for writing/sharing: not sure. Just felt a brief need. That is all. I will aim for happy thoughts this week. And I will be replacing the awful kitchen faucet the house came with tomorrow. It'll be the 1st time trying it on my own - watched hubby twice over the years, and he can advise. Something small but mentally satisfying/productive, at least. Maybe I'll try fixing part of the shower's tile grout, too. Wish me luck.

"Saga of the Malfunctioning Mechanicals" quest stays in the active section of the Journal under "Mentioned" even after Hogarth moves to Fairfield. Quest becomes impossible to complete even after acquiring the parts it asks for.

There's some setting that fudges the dice and is intended to help avoid chains of bad rolls, in practice it seems to make rolls worse (or at least more "average"), turning it off seemed to at least improve things for me. May be in my head, may not be, there's been evidence collected to indicate the former, but since Larian doesn't disclose how the setting atually works and kept updating it there's no telling how accurate that evidence still is. Anyway, may want to try turning it off (it's on by default) and see if that improves things for you, it did for me.

After reaching level 18 the flaw Easily distracted enforces the negative and let's me only add points to the lowest skill, but the benefit of 3 skill points is not working anymore.

Same on my end. Went to the location, text popped, but no audio and no Severin to be found. Completed other quests, changed region and planet, checked on other communication devices, but no luck making him appear.

There is no interst to explore this world. World is dead.NPC's dont react even when i steal their stuuf infront of them. They just stand around doing nothing.Not even smallest simulation of life. I dont want why i bother nobody cares.This game is dead on release. I could point a few things but i dont thing anyone will listen. 1:Backpacks.All kinds must be added. From small pouches to big ones if you need to carry your supplies with you.Such as ammo food and drinks.And distributed among npc's. 2:survival mod where drinking eating and sleeping is a must. 3:Day night cycle. 4:Timescale same as real world. 5:Make this world alive.NPC's must atleast react when i rob them blind.Also move around All of them must be doing their stuff.Repairing guarding working. Again this world same is aboba.Its dead. Also may be obsidian will give players some toolkit or something to make full scale mods. Games where modding is not allowed die quickly.I mean people still play STALKER. Save this game if you care.

This thread really is quite slow when I'm not around... So, quote for the day: "In America you call it the Alt Right. In Germany, we call it 'Why Grandpa lives in Argentina Now.'"

You make the mistake of thinking that Trump is the only one who is the problem here. It's all the people behind Trump that are the problem. You can't compare this with the Biden side, like, at all. It's pure and unfiltered greed. If Trump would die tomorrow, nothing would change. They'll just turn him into this mystical godlike figure and keep on keeping on. You have to get rid of the entire upper echelon of the GOP and I doubt that's ever going to happen. That said, I really need to stop engaging with you when it comes to Trump. Your incredibly consistent naïveté (I googled how to write that, I think it's a nice word) everything Trump related gives me serious rage. That's master level political trolling.

am so not embracing the biden v. trump cognitive race to the bottom. neither one 'o them shoulda' been running for President in to 2024. we mentioned multiple times how we wouldn't trust either one 'o them behind the wheel o' a car or working a gas stove, so why on earth would we think they were up to handling the office o' President? am thinking it's possible that most o' the biden team had genuine convinced themselves that he could still handle the duties of President in 2024, 'cause people are capable o' all kinda self-delusion and goal post shifting when confronted with tough choices. what am not able to accept is that the biden folks thought joe could manage another four years, and if that is the case, then multiple people shoulda' stepped forward to insist on a traditional primary. should never have needed get to the debate performance. am not letting the biden folks off the hook. they doomed democrats by not convincing biden to step away and let somebody else be the democrat candidate. unlike biden, trump is the one who shows legit signs o' dementia as 'posed to just old age, but so what? biden were looking very old, too old to be President. nevertheless, biden weren't a threat to democracy who had already tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power. biden were not a convicted felon who had, according to grand jury testimony of his own lawyers, attempted to prevent federal agents from retrieving top secret documents from mar-a-lago where he directed multiple persons to destroy evidence o' his interaction with those documents. biden were never found liable for sexual assault/digital rape. biden weren't talking about the enemy within and a mass deportation o' 20 million people, which is the approximate population of ny state. etc. elections is usually a lesser of evils choice. the thing is, biden were old and NOT on the ballot at the time of the election. we didn't much like kamala harris either, but compared to trump? even if all the republican fever dreams 'bout harris were born out, the worst case scenario for 2025 is... what exact? with a republican house, senate and this Court, harris wouldn't have been executive ordering her way to through the charred embers of the Constitution even if she had immunity from prosecution. so maybe a few more trans athletes competing in girls/women's sports? economically, what could she have done that were worse than trump's tariffs idiocy? and again, am a fiscal conservative, so am most certain not embracing many o' the progressive suggestions regarding economic change, but the US did better than virtual the rest o' the world post pandemic and is not as if the biden folks had implemented a communist takeover while nobody were looking. with biden out of the race and none o' those pesky age/capacity concerns at play with harris, it were difficult for us to see why a traditional free market conservative would vote for trump instead o' harris... even if we were able to ignore the rape, felonies, obstruction, mass deportation and "enemy within" crap from trump, which we couldn't. but yeah, the biden folks had to know he weren't fit to be President for another four years... and? HA! Good Fun!

Well, his and his doctor's. It's probably the most detailed section of the report, for whatever that's worth, since it mentions no less than three specific tests. It is perhaps relevant that you don't tend to get people saying Trump's doctors think he has anxiety or depression, which were the other two tests he took along with the MoCA. It's pretty clearly so a damned if you do, damned if you don't for Trump. Whatever he does people are going to think it's evidence he has dementia. If he takes a test it's because his doctors think he's got dementia. But if he doesn't take one then that's because he's trying to hide his dementia instead and he'd probably end up taking one anyway. He certainly has signs of mental decline, but that is what inevitably happens to old people. 14 for Trump, 20 for Biden. Number and even quality doesn't necessarily correlate to effectiveness though, given those 20 medical professionals missed Biden's cancer. In terms of a neurologist specifically, Biden's campaign claimed he'd seen one three times during his presidency, by way of comparison. Don't really want to write a thesis level analysis but quick and dirty: cognitive tests like the MoCA are useful because they're quick- and if you're seeing 14 or 20 specialists in a day that is important, same as it is if you're seeing a dozen patients a day- and a litmus test for a specific symptom. Dementia can be hard to diagnose from 'physical' tests, in part because it isn't actually a disease per se but a symptom of (a) disease(s) (or other cause) such as Alzheimer's/ Parkinson's/ ischaemia/ TBI etc. eg my dad had no direct physical symptoms at all when he was diagnosed despite two MRIs.

Seeing melathi's post about Hogwarts Legacy I decided to give it ago before Outer Worlds2. Yeah, I liked it more then I expected. I thought they managed to capture the universe rather well. Definitely the amount of murdering player does feels rather odd. And while I mostly found story to be fairly alright, there were couple points I felt the inability to react to things felt really odd. Main character doesn't really have a personality but the game also doesn't allow players to express themselves in spite of conversation options. There were quite a few things, especially in the latter part of the game, were I feel characters just move on from some things that really asked to be brought up. Overall, better then I expected. As I enjoyed early Harry Potter books and films in primary school, HL managed to pull my nostalgia strings. Started Outer Worlds2 - looks promising so far. Opening mission promised reactivity that I missed in the original game had. Adding to it the overall buzz around the game, I think I will enjoy this one.

Really would be great to get some update about this from Obsidian. It's the most upvoted issue by far.

"Trump has unveiled a number of moves aimed at cutting drug prices in recent months, but he has yet to move the needle on reducing costs – much less slashing them by 1,500%, which is mathematically impossible, experts say." ... experts say? experts? why not just ask a random fourth grader? am curious why the obvious question regarding the MoCA administered by walter reed doctors as part o' a trump exam is never asked: why did doctors feel it were prudent to have trump take the MoCA? is not a standard test for seventy-somethings. the fact doctors had trump take the test should be worrisome to people, but somehow that fact gets lost. tell us that his most recent PET scan is clear wouldn't raise alarms? 'course you would be curious as to why he were getting PET scans, right? PET scans is not routine. MoCA is similar not ordinary. trump bragging about acing the test is signature trump stoopid, but it should concern everybody that doctors had reason to administer the test. we were in the room when the test were administered to our +80 father following his TIA. *shrug* keep in mind that the media mocking trump for his ignorance and stoopidity is one o' the reasons he is so popular, as insane as that sounds. maga is about outrage and grievance... maga is the real victims in 2025. the perception that smarty-pants libs has been mocking working class americans for their lack o' education is one reason why they vote for trump. 47 is overt ignorant, unapologetically bigoted... and he is a winner. is a curiously seductive combination for too many americans. trump is using his voters and likely hates 'em, but maga loves trump 'cause he is their retribution. https://www.c-span.org/clip/campaign-2024/user-clip-i-am-your-retribution/5100721 maga identifies with trump not in spite o' his ignorance and bigotry but 'cause o' such. maga loves trump 'cause he is shameless and vindictive. lord help us. HA! Good Fun!

The worst part is the complete lack of communication from Obsidian. Under investigation for 3 days... and that's it !

Im about 80 hours into Cyb2077 and Im about to finish the last mission Its been fun but not fantastic, firstly the game gets a 60/100 on the globally respected " BruceVC game rating system ". Thats not a terrible score, anything higher than 50 is still worth playing I found myself getting bored with the game and most of the missions and the main reason for this is because Im not a big cyberpunk fan. So its not like Witcher and fantasy which is my favourite RPG genre First what I liked about the game very stable now. No serious bugs or crashes, maybe 3-4 CTD and I was using loads of mods I liked the hacking and braindance mechanics I liked the details with Night City and the NPC. It felt like a living city NPC and companions had interesting side quests I completed Phantom Liberty in the middle of the main quest and that was an interesting diversion There were some unique side-quests and choices I had to make like should I support the guy who wanted to crucify himself on live TV The races were fun and hunting all the cyberpsychos added some challenge to combat What I didnt like about the game Combat becomes too easy, nothing really can kill you on higher levels the city doesn't really have much to do outside of a few common activities the lore didn't motivate or interest me. not enough Romance or adult content. This is suppose to be a city of depravity and corruption and you were limited around what you could interact with despite extensive crafting available I ended up just using 3 weapons all the time I didnt end up using most of the special abilities as you increase in levels because I didnt need to use them in combat. Its a strange mechanical implementation in a game if you dont need to use something you have levelled up towards? As I mentioned my main issues with the game is because Im just not a cyberpunk fan Overall, fun game but nothing like the Witcher games

Same here, made an account for this reason.

Right, well, I'm a customer too, and this customer says "Great job Obsidian for ditching stupid, useless romances in your RPGs." Their developer resources are much better spent on pretty much anything else.

Support wrote me they are working on it. But they didn't say anything certain. So, it's clear to me that the bonuses will only go live tomorrow, when the game releases for the rest of the world. We, who paid in advance, will be forgotten about again.

https://people.com/donald-trump-mistakes-dementia-screening-for-iq-test-11837935 Canadian neurologist Dr. Ziad Nasreddine, who created the MoCA test in 1996, told NBC News that the screening should not be used to measure intelligence. "There are no studies showing that this test is correlated to IQ tests," Nasreddine said. "The purpose of it was not to determine persons who have a low IQ level. So we cannot say that this test reflects somebody's IQ.” I always like it when news stories bother to add these "expert opinions" to stories like this, bonus points that it's literally the creator of the MoCA* this time - as if this is a serious story where we really need context to fully understand what all of this means, when actually...yeah, we know the guy is just a dumbass. *

I pick up everything too, 100% get you on that. I will keep an eye on this also and report if it starts happening to me (on XBox). More data == a pattern that might get the devs to the solution quicker. : )

The original had a fantastic romance between Pavarti and that other lady, so I guess you just mean your PC can't be a horndog with multiple companions. Oh no.

No need to apologise! But thanks for providing. I'm not a dev or anything, but have spent most of my adult live involved in technical support or troubleshooting of one kind or another, so I know this info is helpful. If we, the users, can establish any kind of pattern to these things happening, then that might help the devs identify what part of the code/flow is having issues, and get them to a fix faster. : ) So thanks to you and MushRoomQueen -- we now know it's not platform-specific. If this keeps happening, and if you're able to discern any pattern, please post again! For example: o Does it seem to happen coincident to combat? If so: does your health bar status change at all? (My first thought is, "is the system is automatically consuming your food and drinks once you come out of combat to bring you to full health, instead of that being an action that you as a player are deciding to trigger?") o Do you have a sense of "it happens after x minutes/hours", such as, at some point, you think, "it's about time to check to see if my food/drink has disappeared again", because you've started to notice a pattern in time? o Did it seem to start happening after some point in the game? If so, do you recall what you were doing around that time -- did you complete a particular quest, for example? It's interesting that MushRoomQueen reported that this happened halfway through the tutorial. That's pretty early and an interesting data point, thank you. : )

For me personally, I am finding the writing in this game to be some of the most honest emotional writing in a modern RPG than I can remember. And relationships are extremely complex and varied. The amount of time and effort that it would take an entire dedicated writing devision to do it to the standard that is set by the writing now would be immense and not very realistic. The amount of variables, variants of playstyles, the vast array of the consumer base, that they would have to consider would probably honestly take hundreds of thousands of working hours which would have delayed the game and increased their running costs which would have effected the sell price or the quality in the end which either way would have been a loss for us, the players. That is my personal thought on this though and I know my view is not the only one and all are valid.

Oh, come on, I never said I was "against" upscaling, at least not in any black and white way. I've used DLSS-Quality plenty of times by now and I've said it's improved enough that Quality or sometimes, maybe, Balanced, is acceptable image wise. That's useful for extending life of a system. But going to extremes with upscaling just to play a game, losing tons of image quality, the ability for the image to look good on a larger screen, and all the artifacting/input delay/other stuff if you have to take upscaling/other too far = no. I'm just not that desperate to play those kind of titles on release. And I'm aware re: 2080ti. Never tried to imply my gpu is some total potato? Why do you think I haven't upgraded it yet? It still works for most titles/things. As to "surviving" AAA/UE5. lol. Having to build a new rig/system periodically is the way it is. Been doing that for decades now, of course. You're making it sound like I'm saying I never want to upgrade ever ever again. That's not it. I don't want to upgrade right now when it's obvious even current hardware won't last long/isn't enough for these games (even WITH upscaling), for the ridiculous prices of said hardware. The dev's will get better at using UE5 (and/or UE5 will improve, or another engine will take over in a few years, or), hardware will improve a little (probably not tons), and so on, if I wait. Or one can play some such games at 900p/30+fps on a 570 (saw a video with that, heh). That's not my style anymore tho - because I like bigger screens, not because I'm some mega-resolution or fps nut. If 1080 still looked great (to me) on a 55", I'd use it. But it doesn't. And if I had to upscale on top of that, even worse. Such is up to users preferences.

Didn't try. But since it's a bug that only affects a small number of players I assume it never got much attention and thus didn't get fixed. You can use Second Wind of course, but only if your endurance is above 50%. That is not great, but can still buy you time once per encounter.

Yeah this happened to me half way through the tutorial and at first I thought I'd just somehow used them all but it happened again and was rather annoying when I needed to heal up after combat.

DF take (2080Ti is still a stronger card than the 4060, seems heavy on the CPU though): Re STALKER: The indie-Likes are coming here too. One is with furrys! The other has a demo still up. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1963610/Road_to_Vostok/

Went back to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 now that about a year has passed and we're on the 1.6.1 patch to see how far the game has come and...well, they've added Night Vision Devices, and the Mosin, and it does run more stable, but other than that very little seems to have changed about the things I disliked. In fact, one of my main complaints, enemy spawning, seems to have regressed since I last played, even at release with enemies obnoxiously spawning around you it'd take some effort to actually catch them "popping in", but on 1.6.1 I've literally had enemies pop into existence right in front of me on enough occasions that it's become rather bothersome. There's also generally too many, it's literally impossible to get from A to B without the game spawning a bunch of enemies around you, if you're lucky they'll be too busy fighting each-other (which, I suppose, is an improvement over release where they'd all go for you). To test whether it was the game or I was just imagining things it I decided to make the trek from Quiet to Azimuth Station (after the mission that takes place there) multiple times in a row, this is a short distance that has you cross a tiny strip of empty bog, of the 8 times in a row I made the corssing (4 in each direction) I didn't run into anything only once, every other time there was something going on in this tiny strip of land. That's ridiculous, especially since there's no realistic way for anything to get there. Missions still have the same issues they've always had with exposition but they've somehow managed to break in-world subtitles (which is a bit of an issue, seeing as I can't stand the English VO, but I also don't speak Ukrainian...) so I have to rely on memory for much of the context. Haven't had any main missions outright break though, which is nice. Worst I had was an early side missions for the Ward in the Chemical Plant that I had to reload 6 or 7 times to get to function correctly. So yeah...there's supposed to be an engine update in the next patch (1.7), honestly not sure what good it'll do unless it somehow also fixes the spawn issues.

Please fix it.

Stygian: Outer Gods. Still Early Access, with a final release scheduled first half of 2026 or so. But as I'm playing highest difficulty and really take my time, I've already clocked ten hours into it according to the in-game clock. Still not finished. Stygian's got Cthulhu, Lovecraft's Kingsport as a sort of hub world gradually unlocking, some RPG elements (including a skill that lets you talk with 'em dead), a bit of stealth -- plus Raphael Colantonio (Arkane's founder, former CEO and gaming's Last Action Hero) as the voice of THE SEER. Had to have it. The mood is already pretty damn spot on. Positive that this can be a better game than the ancient Dark Corners Of The Earth.

Honestly that sounds fairly sane given the state of the world.

I don't have much experience as a solo Wizard, but here are some things that are generally useful: Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff is excellent for the early game. It's a lot more efficient than using damaging spells, so you have to rest less often. It comes exceptional - which is already fantastic at lvl 1, but more importantly it has nearly twice the base damage of normal two handers. That means nearly +100% multiplicative(!) damage. *rogues cry* Chillfog is also one of the best spells early on. Tier 3 affliction on a AoE with pulsing rolls (rng is less of a problem), pulsing damage, long duration. Later in the game I consider Slicken to be better than Chillfog because it can make a huge difference in certain fights who disables whom first. If you can Slicken-prone Lagufaeth or Adragans before they can paralyze you the fight is won - the other way round it's lost. Chillfig will not win you this duel of hard disables. Confusion is very strong in PoE. Hence all spells which cause Confusion are excellent and can win you lots of fights alone. Get Ninagauth's Shadowflame. It is excellent bc. it combines hard CC with good dmg -> fantastic action and spell use economy. Against certain bosses, Combusitng Wounds + Wall of Flames + Chillfog is a fantastic combo. Most dragons are not immune to paralyze, so using paralyzing effects in them works very well (it also means +100% dmg received which is nice against those big dmg sponges). Dropping RES without any means to raise Concentration otherwise WILL be a problem against numerous, fast hitting foes unless you can raise your defenses a lot (may be expensive in terms of spell uses though). Defenses like dflection hae increasing returns, so I wouldn't drop RES in the first place. Medium and large shields do indeed put their acc malus onto your offensive spells You can run away and break engagement - you will eat a disengagement attack though. If you have very high deflection it's not a big deal. If you are faster than the enemy (bc. Deleterious Alacrity and/or Boots of Speed etc.) the enemies will not pursue far bc. their AI recognizes that it's pointless. The guy's name is Raedric (the Seventh) Infuse with Vital Essence can be used to restore health (no endurance but health). It works with all healing modifiers (MIG, healing done, healing received). If you still have lots of spell uses but are at low health you can use it to prevent resting. If you take it as Spell Mastery (I like that) you can use it at the end of fights and stay at +90% health all the time. It can be used to outheal your damage in tough, long encounters: usually there's a limit with how much damage to endurance you can outheal because at some point your health will be so low that you cannot heal anymore. Not if you have uses of Infuse with Vital Essence left. Using Infuse with Vital Essence also means you can lower CON. Your health pool can be smaller - since you can heal it. You cannot solo several encounters at the levels you used to with a party. You will have to come back later for the bear cave, Raedric etc. Summons are very important whe4n going solo. Interestingly Essential Phantom is a lvl-4 spell. So you can have it as spell mastery. That means a free summon in every fight. Although it's competing with Shadowflame and Confusion which makes this a really tough call. Wall of Many Colors: fantastic spell I think DEX is important. As I said above: many fights are about who disables whom first. Casting speed matters. I find it a lot more important than MIG and also more important than PER.

You could say that about just any type of relationship in cRPGa, including friendship. Building relationships with companions by doing quests for them is a popular approach to writing. And a friendship can feel every bit as forced if it is not player's choice but writer's insistence. I've actually had less issues with romances (as someone who rarely plays them) because usually there is a way to turn them down. One game where I've found the approach to relationshps interesting (even if the game itself was barely finished and not that good) was Dragon Age 2, because it had both friendship an rivarly. My character ended up with very different relationships with everyone at the end of the game, and it didn't feel like simply completing the companion quests meant everyone was now best buddies.

No Consumerism here either. I did my part.

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/valves-latest-counter-strike-2-update-flashbangs-entire-skins-market-headshots-speculators-and-clutch-defuses-inflationary-market-prices/

That's not too bad actually. Since Rogues get access to a lot of damage bonuses you can easily get away with only 11 MIG though and put more points into CON and RES (both 10). But I think you can also leave it as is. 8 in CON an RES should be manageable. I would start fairly thick with a brigandine (doesn't look too weird on a Rogue imo). Kana Rua (companion) has one you could use for example. Then I would try to go lighter from time to time and see how it works, if it's doable. My goal would be to go all the way down to the Deadfire Pack uniforms (I'd pick the Deackhand's Uniform), but it may be that you'll have to stop at Padded or Leather Armor or so. It depends a bit on your party (like if you have even more squishy party members who take attention awaqy from you for example) and how you play. If you want to stay with a bit heaver armor because it works well: my favorite for Rogues is the Sun-Touched Mail of Hyran Rath. You can cast Sunbeam with it 3x per Rest. Sunbeam blinds (good for Rogues) and the Rogue's Deathblows (+100% damage against enemies who suffer from at least 2 Sneak-Attack-Afflictions) works with spells, including Sunbeam. So it can be a good damage tool, too. At the same time I would def. put on +deflection gear (bracers or cloak) and also some +RES item. If you can get higher deflection that some of your backliners (wizard etc.) the enemies might not want to attack you as desperately. You can trick enemies a bit by wearing a large shield + hatchet at the start of battle, that will give you a lot of bonus deflection. And then, when the enemies settled on their targets and you are on your way to attack some of them you switch to your actual weapons. It also works with two hatchets (if the look of a large shield feels too weird on your Rogue). Two hatchets give +10 deflection (+5 for each hatchet) and that stacks with everything.

If you want to build the Rogue efficiently you cannot use dagger and stilettos, you'd have to decide which ones you like better and then pick a backup weapon set which belongs to the same weapon focus group. Weapon focus gives you +6 accuracy for a certain group of weapons. Weapon Focus Noble contains daggers (among other weapons). Weapon Focus Ruffian contains stilettos. You don't want to buy two weapon focuses if you can avoid it. Avoiding it means picking for example two stilettos as main weapon set and use two sabres or clubs as backup (since both belong to the Weapon Focus Ruffian) or pick daggers + maces or rapiers (Weapon Focus Noble). The best unique weapon of the dagger or stiletto variant is a dagger: Drawn in Spring. It comes rather late though. There's also a good speedy dagger early in the game (March Steel Dagger). But there are also two nice stilettos in the game which both proc certain spell effects on crit (once per encounter): Azureith's Stiletto (procs Jolting Touch on crit) which comes super early and Bleak Fang (procs Touch of Rot) which comes late. There are some really nice unique/spoil bound (early) clubs and sabres in the game, too. So I personally would probably concentrate on stiletto and use some nice clubs and sabres as backup (when you meet enemies who are resistant or immune to pierce damage): clubs do crush dmg, sabres slash damage. Then pick Two Weapon Style, several of the full attack strikes (Crippling, Blinding etc.), NOT Savage Attack (of doesn't stack with Reckless Assault which you should pick). If you get targeted a LOT despite Eder engaging enemies it's most likely that your Rogue is so soft that he is too much of a temptation for enemies' AI. Rangers, Barbs, Rogues etc. prefer to attack low deflection, low DR and low endurance targets. If you dumped RES and CON and put on no significant of DR you will be very attractive. So attractive that enemies will even break engagement with Eder in order to get to you. Putting on a thicker armor and giving some +deflection items can help. You will have less offensive output - but your offensive output will be zero if you get attacked and knocked out all the time. So you have to compromise a bit. Also stay stealthed until Eder really has engaged several enemies and only then in stealth and try to flank enemies - rather than approaching the middle of the front line. You can place Eder at the front of the group and then leave a gap. So that enemies discover Eder first and the rest of the party stays hidden for longer. Use Escape to... escape if things get dire. Use Boots of Speed to run away if enemies approach you. If you are a lot faster than the enemy the AI usually stops following you immediately because there's no point. Beware disengagement attacks though.

Romance does not bother me either way. If there is, fine. If there isn't, fine.

I would say so. But keep in mind that PER also influences your ability to detect traps and secrets and the official companions usually don't have very high PER either. Not to me, it depends on how you play them (which spell selection etc.) though. I for example would play Serafen mainly as a Will and Fortitude debuffer with Spirit Frenzy, Secret Horrors and morning star modal. The MC I would use for fast-cast powers and damage I think. I run Aloth as SC Wizard most of times. I think it's the best option. Instead of Ghost Heart I would do vanilla Ranger then. Sharpshooter isn't good for this kind of playstyle (too slow) and Arcane Archer doesn't really fit thematically imo. Stalker is not good if you move around quickly and change from ranged to melee and back a lot. Instead of Cipher you could certainly do Troubadour or maybe even better Bellower ("ARRR"). This would also be a good opportunity to use Sasha's Singing Scimitar. With Scordeo's Edge Skald is also a good option, even though you won't get anything special from the shooting first. Most invocations have short casting time but longer recovery, which is great for shortened recovery effects. Ranger/Skald is very good with Blightheart (soulbound arquebus). The Skald doesn't generate phrases from crits then (because ranged), but every kill (no matter how) grants +1 phrase with Blightheart - and Skald's offensive invocations are so cheap that it makes a big difference. With dual blunderbusses instead of a pistol there's the Streetfighter of course. With Serafen's two mortars Monk is always a strong option. Stunning Surge + AoE + INT bonus is fantastic, paired with Driving Flight. In both cases there's no casting though. I don't really see a Paladin here. Thematically I mean. Principi and Paladins kind of clash in my head. Although Goldpact always works as long there's pay ofc.

I think there are just as many customers who don't care if the game has no romance. And some that would even prefer that it doesn't have romance options. I fall into the group of customers who don't care either way. I respect your opinion, but it's a little surprising that no romance is a complete deal breaker for you.

I get what you mean. Romance in a lot of RPGs feels forced, shallow, and almost like a checklist feature. You talk to a character a few times, pick the “flirty” dialogue options, give them a gift or two, and suddenly they’re in love with you. Then after the predictable “romance scene,” the story basically forgets the relationship ever existed. There’s no actual depth, no growth, no conflict—just a lazy mini-quest that pretends to be character development. If romance is going to be in a game, it should matter to the narrative, not just exist for a cheap reward or fan service.

I understand why people want romance in video games.. However, I've never been a fan of how romance is handled in most video games, especially RPG's. It's always extremely lame, takes minimal dialogue and effort and the main objective is usually just to get them in bed. There's then sometimes some idiotic reward for doing so and the relationship is never brought up again. It's just so stupid. Unless the developers are going to put real time and effort into an in-game romance, then there's no reason for it. And if a players imagination is good enough to find actual substance in past lame RPG' romances, they shouldn't need any prompting or hints of romance to create one themselves in any RPG. Just let your imagination go wild, create your own romance stories and dont' worry about there being no dialogue in the game for it. I mean, there are beloved companions from past games that seriously have no substance or backstory whatsoever, people just love the characters because of what they created in their head while running around with that character for 60 hours.

As somebody who enjoyed Baldur's Gate 3, I would argue that even that game handled romance poorly. Characters that I had given little to no focus where suddenly looking to jump my bones by the end of the first act. What started as a polite conversations with Gale and Wyll turned into these weird moments of sexual tension. I'd spoken to each of them an entire three times, including the time I met them. Then again, I can't say that I personally understand the fascination with romance in games like this. Were I in any way interested I'd just play one of those dating sims.

Everybody who uses Area of Effect (AoE) abilities of any kind. This includes nearly every class. Even Barb's Carnage is affected. Rogues may get the least out of it unless they are using equipment with lots of spellbindings (like a sabre with Fireball on it or something). Note that a Ring of Overseeing doesn't stack with Aloth's Armor (also Overseeing). One will get suppressed. You can only make use of one Overseeing item. But it stacks with the effects of Intellect (which also influences AoE size). It also staks with Voice of th Mountaintop (chanter item) which raises your chant AoE. So high INT + Overseeing + Voice of the Mountaintop = big, big chant area. There are also boots for Paladins which raise their aura AoE. They also stack with Overseeing and INT.