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Hi, first of all: the early game is pretty hard - noticably harder than what comes afterwards until the late game. It is most likely not your Priest build's fault that you feel that way but a combination of: Picking a class that is not very strong at the beginning of the game. Although the Priest will become your most impactful party member soon amd is considered the most powerful class overall, it starts rather slow. Classes like Fighter, Ranger or Monk start a lot stronger because they have higher base stats and don't rely on per-rest spells (which are scarce so early in the game). They will not become as powerful as a Priest (or Wizard or Druid for example) but the early game is easier with them. Not knowing the mechanics well (yet) - this will solve itself over time The early game being quite hard as I said - nothing you can do about that except: accepting that you don't have to fight every enemy in sight. Sneaking around and avoiding fights (alltogether or come back later after more level-ups) are valid options. The game doesn't give much XP rewards for fighting. Instead, exploring and quests are the main source of XP. using some sneaky tactics like: kiting/pulling/separating enemies, using chokepoints or even lure certain enemies towards other enemies (example: lure wolves to a bandit camp in Valewood, lure some trolls to a bandit camp in Black Meadow or luring the Sly Cyrdel bounty group towards the group of Gramrfel the Wayfarer in Magran's Fork a bit later in the game) Anyway, my understanding is that you want to play a melee Wizard. This is a good choice if you keep a few things in mind: The best weapon options for a melee Wizard are always his summoned weapons. They are vasty more powerful than any other weapon the wiuard can use, especially at level 1. At level 1 you pick Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff. It has a lot more base damage than a normal two handed weapon (20-30), has exceptional quality (which is awesome that early in the game and balances out the bad base accuracy of the Wizard) and drains endurance for you with every successful attack. Later use Citzal's Spirit Lance which has the same high base damage but also AoE capabilites and speed. If you feel that that's not enough summoned weapons and that you burn through them to quickly you can also pick up the Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer and Forgemaster Gloves during the early(ish) game. That will give you 6 casts of Firebrand per rest, a summoned fire great sword that also has the same high base damage. Try to not be in the front line too much in the early game. The Staff and the Lance are reach weapons so you can stand in the second line and still hit enemies who attack your front line. Infuse with Vital Essence is a great spell to regain lost health. Endurance can be healed during the encounter, but health usually only gets healed during a rest. Infuse with Vital Essence however will give you "temporary" bonus health. The thing is though that it's not really temporary but just stays there as if you had healed. It works even better if you use some items that give you incresed healing, for example the early amulet of Fulvano (or Fulvano's Amulet) which increses all healing you receive by 25% and a survival/camping bonus for increased healing. High Might also increases the effect. Use the Survical skill and put it to 4 points asap. This gives you access to a neat accuracy bonus based on the kind of enemy you face. If you can bring it up to 10 asap (this takes time). This can also be done by skilling it to 8 only and then use an item that grants +2 survival (there are several) and put it on before camping/resting in the wilds. You don't need to wear it all the time. This will give you an even bigger accuracy bonus gainst certain enemies. You need to scout ahead a bit an check out the tyoes of enemies which are awaiting you (if you don't know already) but this bonus reall helps. If you will face kith enemies: there's no survival bonus for them so go for increased healing instead (tier II grants +40% healing). It stacks with the amulet's effects (25%+40% = 65% more healing received ). If you feel too squishy pick Veteran's Recovery. It heals very well if combined with the bonus healing options I mentioned above and will keep you alive without you having to cast Corrosive Siphon or a party member needing to use a healing spell on you. Use Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon to heal even more if necessary. Talents which are great for a melee Wizard: Veteran's Recovery as I said above if you feel too squishy Weapon Focus for whatever your backup weapon is. Summoned weapons can use any weapon focus, they are universal in that regard. So if you want a backup weapon (I suggest Durance's Staff) you pick Weapon Focus Peasant and this will apply to the quarterstaff and the Spirit Lance as well. Aspirant's Mark: this is a -8 delfection and reflex spel that is 1/encounter which is awesome. You can cast this in every fight right at the start - best is after the Priest hit you with an Inspiring Radiance (+10 accuracy). This doesn't have to be done by your wizard and could be used by any of your party members (it's especially good on a Fighter with Disciplied Barrage). Two Handed Style: since the summoned wepaons have high base damage, all damage bonuses you can get have a visible impact Arcane Veil: great to have in a pinch when you get damaged too much. Also great to demotivate enemy rushers to pick you as target in the first place Savage Attack: only later in the game where accuracy isn't an issue anymore (because of Priest buffs, good debuffs on enemies and so on) Apprentice's Sneak Attack: as I said: bonus dmg works well with summoned weapons Good spells to use as a melee Wizard (I mean there are tons but these ones I cast more frequently than others as a melee Wizard): Chillfog: one of the best spells and especially early on. Just don't step into its AoE yourself Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff Deleterious Alarity of Motion: raises your melee dps a ton because your recover twice as fast, especially great with the speed of the Spirit Lance all defensive self-buffs, especially Llengrath's Safeguard which stacks with all deflection-only-buffs such as Arcane Veil Infuse with Vital Essence as I described above Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon Pull of Eora: very good in combination with Spirit Lance in order to pull enemies into tight fomations where your lance AOE can hit them all Citzal's Martial Power once you are done with buffing/summoning stuff Eldritch Aim is great as Spell Mastery imo (at level 9 you can pick a spell you already know which turns from per rest into 1/encounter) Attributes: above average MIG since it boosts not only damage but also healing you do (to yourself). It's also one of the few things that boosts spell damage. But it doesn't need to be maxed or anything. I'd say ~12. mediocre CON is enough (~10) decent DEX and PER (~14) high INT (~18) mediocre RES (~10) shifting a few points here and there doesn't make a difference. Tthe attributes are not crazy impactful like in other games

War plans in D4 LoH seem incomplete. I need JIRA and a end of list retrospective with Tyrael.

New Lithium-Plasma Engine Passes Key Mars Propulsion Test

Heroes of Might & Magic: Olden Era. Seems like a very solid, if budget HoM&M installment. I enjoyed the demo they released a while back, and this already feels stronger. Only spent a bit time in a custom match, and I am a very casual HoM&M player - very little multiplayer experience. Still, I really like it so far, especially for £25. Looking forward to seeing how it develops.

a few partial/incomplete louise brooks film were found, restored, and released on blu-ray recently it's like they know i exist

They should give Obsidian to make an RPG in the Diablo setting. I am eager to fish in Diablo

Right now, the Lizard boss fight feels like hitting a punching bag until it dies. Unlike the Broodmother, which had distinct phases that changed as her health dropped, the Lizard has no stage transitions. This makes the fight less engaging and removes the sense of evolving mechanics. Adding combat phases would make the encounter more dynamic and rewarding. For example, the Lizard could start with fast bite attacks, then switch to charging moves, and finally use tail strikes as its health decreases. This would restore the challenge and progression that makes boss fights memorable, instead of just being a damage sponge.

Lord of Hatred. Blizzard's update to the games turned it into a zen exercise simulator. Pretty good one though. Click this button here to create a new character. Wait five minutes. Pick class. Wait five minutes. Pick from presets or customize your own character, but the assets aren't loaded in. Wait five minutes. Click play game, wait five minutes, pick difficulty (huh?) then "Reconnecting...", wait five minutes... "Lobby Server Not Available"

Finished BG3 and started on Civ 5. Still my favorite Civ game. Need a break from cRPGs after hundreds of hours slogging through BG3. 😛

Sounds like those countries just need to instituted a UBI and their problems will vanish overnight. 🤔

PS: What you can also do is to play a Fighter with high INT and use Lore for scrolls (potentially very powerful) and so-called spellbinding gear. Those are items that contain per-rest spells of Wizards, Druids and Priests (and sometimes even Ciphers) and can be used by anybody. A Fighter is a good candidate because the spells work especially well with the high accuracy the Fighter class has. For examle there's Bots that contain Jolting Touch 3/rest, a sabre that contains Fireball 3/rest, an Amulet and an armor which both contain Sunburst 3/rest each (so in total 6 casts of Sunburst per rest), an Estoc that has Blizzard 3/rest and so on. You can then add some talents such as Aspirant's Mark, Prestidigitator's Missiles, Enigma's Charm... (all 1/encounter). That way you can build a very accurate Fighter who's good with weapon (because... Fighter) and has some nice spells from items, talents and scrolls, too.

CD - 150ish hours now. I probably have another 200 hours + to go! At least according to the posts from people who play for 8+ hrs a day claiming 350-450 hrs to do "everything"/near 100% it (I have zero intention of 100%). I only play an average of 2.5-3 hrs per day so I still have a few months of content. Perhaps. eg, it's been "worth the money" for me, at least. I still wouldn't "recommend" the game outright to anyone tho, because of the "it takes this many hours to get-good" or click, if it ever clicks with one at all, factor. Maybe that's ok for online-only/MMO's, but eh. It really is a sandbox more than anything else. Anyway, probably going to stop yapping about it now. Finally got a little more ahead in the MQ - which technically does get a tad (tad) more comprehensible as time goes on, but it's still not good or cohesive/immersive, even from my "don't care about story" perspective. There is apparently book-lore in the game you can get/read post-game that explains tons of story stuff, like why Kliff is so silent/blank, why the heck the sky-Abyss exists, who these beings are that keep yanking Kliff around, etc. Sounds like the intended background is more interesting than what was put/shown in gameplay. But between this sandbox and maybe one day Death Stranding 2, I may not need another "big"-new game until I build a new rig in 2-3 years. :P

I'm unaware of Steam doing anything like this. Which isn't to say they couldn't have plans for it. All the online-only and/or DRM (Denuvo et al) on games bought on Steam are dev. choices, far as I know. Steam client itself CAN be a form of drm/do-you-own-it check and probably 95% of game on it use it (eg, can't run the game without the Steam client running to "show" you've purchased it on Steam or something) but it's not required by Steam - again, last I knew. I've had the game here and there that could be run via the .exe and Steam client wouldn't auto-open. Which is a small part of why I play single-player games. My Steam is almost always Offline mode (sometimes I even unplug the net cable, especially these days, when not doing anything that immediately needs Online).

I thought these memes and roasts were funny, but probably too politically biased to be considered just humour

Got Timberborn and put a couple of hours in to it. Overall I don't think I'm going to put a ton of time in to it but I'm having fun so far. May be a tad too expensive for what it is and how much gameplay it offers, but I shall see once I'm done with it.

I think it's like with almost anything else in that kind of category. Under "normal" health-wise conditions, a couple sodas or beers or donuts once in a while is no big deal. It's unlikely to do any big harm. The problem comes when it's more of an addiction so it's more like 6+ a day or whatever and over 2-3 decades etc. Hubby is basically a high-functioning alcoholic and has been forever. Started as a self-medication re: sleep apnea coping issues. When we were young, he'd drown in 2-3 pots of coffee in the morning/early afternoon, and by early evening/after work it was a six pack of beer. He's not a fall-down drunk with any major personality changes (maybe 1 beer an hour until bed, he only wants a certain level of it) but he's definitely an addict. He managed to cut down coffee to a few cups in the morning, but the beer - nope. He managed to quit for about a year once (just like my diet soda fixation), but that's it. We are both "addictive/obsessive" personalities, I'm afraid. :D

The Russians shipped oil to Cuba without the intervention of the US military. Remember? Sanctioned Russian tanker docks in Cuba after US allows passage despite energy blockade But yes, it's borderline behavior that should be reviewed by Congress. My particular concern is the use of military strikes against unarmed fishing vessels, which seems a pretty clear-cut human rights violation if not a violation of international law. Yes, Congress should be concerned about that, but the Republicans are too cowed by this administration.

I have completed the main quest of AC Valhalla and it took me about 190 hours I finished the main quest where you end up in the machine with Siguard but I was still having fun so I decided to complete the last few quests like killing all the Order and the Asgard quests The Order assassinations were all easy to find, I had most of the clues and it was just about finding the last few. And the Asgard quest was different and entertaining with all the ties to Norse Mythology like fighting Fenrir and the Jotun magic And then the game ends after you find the last memory shards I found some interesting stats on Steam around overall completion of this game 6.6 % of players killed the entire Order 5% of players got the settlement to level 6 6.4 % of players finished the Jotun quests So the majority of people never finished this game. I was a little surprised by these low overall numbers? But great AC game overall, its gets a solid 68/100 on the globally respected "BruceVC game rating system " Its your quintessential AC type design and mechanics but you cant play these types of games all the time but they definitely fun every now and then Really good value for money

I have finished the Symphony of War DLC missions. There was quite a decent variety of missions and new units - the ones accessible earlier were noticeably easier while the later ones provided a decent challenge. The new units generally enhanced the performance of the existing squads, as I did not want to create a full necromancer squad and could not find enough War Cats. I guess, the main appeal of the DLC would be the NG+ mode. While it does not allow to carry over everything (the units are possible to repurchase for the new currency, Memory Crystals, but they start from level 1), it allows to customise the experience further than the base difficulty options. In terms of story, it provided some interesting lore, but it did not anyhow affect the main game or the ending. I have also found a guide which explained what I suspected - same units attack the same row, so having mixed squads is preferable to the single-type ones.

A few titles I was interested in are available on Fanatical for £2.25 - 3.00 each (I probably will repurchase them on GOG if they are good). https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/build-your-own-fantasy-worlds-bundle

Unemployment benefits are a little more nuanced than that. From Google (its a little out of date but): "Long-Term Unemployed Rise: By August 2025, the number of people unemployed for 27 weeks or longer—those most likely to exhaust state benefits—surged, with more than one in four (25.7%) unemployed Americans out of work for over half a year." So people will eventually drop off the books.

Yes I could, that is correct, but to me it is kind of hassle to do it. And it will become more of a hassle, as the time goes on, as I still prefer playing on my PS4 and PS3 consoles. And I am still buying once in a while new games for them. But yes, that is an issue which I could solve if I had mood and time for that. But, as we all have experienced last few years, it looks like that the world is slowly burning down, and being dependent on outside source to be able to access what I have purchased during another man made crisis, is IMHO not the smartest thing to do. For now it is still OK, but imagine, if people beyond the big pond will elect another MAGA muppet into the office in 2028, and the relationship between the USA and EU deteriorate even more. In worst case economic scenario, this could mean, that for US companies it would be extremely problematic to provide their services in EU. And all of the biggest players in providing these services, are based in USA, including SONY. In such a scenario it would be much more problematic to adhere to 30 day activation period. That being said, the chance of all of that gloom and doom happening is pretty slim (at least for now), but this risk is currently much higher than 15-20 years ago, when Valve, Sony and MS went full steam ahead on transition to "fully digital future."

My consoles were not connected online for last three months 🤷‍♂️ And my PC for month and half 🤷‍♂️ The issue is, that in the last 15 years, I was more often online than Playstation services 😄

Minnesota and Denver sure have played each other a lot in the playoffs the past few years While Minnesota has won 2 of the 3 series, the one series Denver won they went on to win it all, so...

Forgot - I tried swapping the DLSS 4+ .dll in CD with a DLSS 3.5 .dll. No clue why, but it seems to work better for me. Less pixelated image noise (foilage/grass, shadow/light noise, no more ghosting, and increased FPS by maybe 10fps. Image is maybe a tad softer but I increased sharpness on my monitor a small amount and it's fine. It's not perfect but it's better than default game DLSS. Maybe older nvida gpu's don't like 4+, or DLSS 4 sucks, or the fact I only install nvidia driver (no nvidia app with all the new ABCD options etc) affects something - who knows.

Crimson Desert - still playing my version 1.02.00 --every play session I go "Most current Faction quests done, time to do another MQ section, if I get to early Chapt. 11 I can probably ignore the MQ forever (for me) then!" Then 5 minutes after loading save, I'm distracted by something (I need to get more poison/ore/whatever) and go running off into the wilderness for 2.5 hrs. My "knowledge" entries are now around 1400 and I'd guess 65% of map exposed. --Kliff has this one, er, spell, called nature's snare. I just love this thing, the visual and animation of it. It's not actually really useful/needed most of the time, outside of certain boss types, but man I love using it. I so wish the game had had more "magic", even just a little more. Mostly it's socket-gems to give your weapons PoE-like ranged attacks. Effective, but I wanna Mage a bit here and there, not spam-fire lighting or mystical orbs or crows out of my sword. And I still keep kinda wanting to create a new start save folder, mostly to create a "perfect" Chapt 4-5 save as a starting point if I ever want to replay whole thing again, that sort of thing. Of course, it's unclear (or somewhat dubious) that I'd replay this game, so then I think it'd be a waste of tedious time. But my brain still wants to. And I still have a serious love/hate for the game. I'd say it does "get better" - if the sandbox aspects appeal to you - but man still so much to aggravate at the same time. yet I keep turning it on. :D :D

In Denmark we call them "Socialdemocrats". I.e. the workers party. At some point they went screw it, this is what people wants, this is what we give the people. Effectively stealing a lot of the thunder from far right parties, who normally campaign on that single subject. We do have some of the most immigrant unfriendly policies in Europe though. How Denmark's left (not the far right) got tough on immigration Denmark’s hardline immigration laws have caught Britain’s eye. Here’s why | CNN Denmark’s Approach to Immigration and the Debate on EU’s Asylum and Migration Policy | Northern Europe | bpb.de Will Denmark's hardline migration policy influence rest of EU? Tl;dr; You are not welcome and don't expect to remain here.

Just a suggestion or wish I know it may defeat the purpose of thirst drain in woozy or heavy drain areas but could we possibly get a Juicy Drop trinket from juice that gives thirst like the Hogstopper one for hunger. I think it would be great for like an emergency source or if your just hanging around somewhere trying to explore without worrying about thirst drain.

Thanks!

The thing that drives me insane is when they offer a quick "jump to next episode" button at the start of the credits, but when you do that, the damned progress bar is not full. So I always fast-forward through the credits. Like, is that so hard? Sheesh.

Yes its a legitimate point you making. Its similar to the argument " we see so much crime from community x or y because of inequality\poverty " ( or something similar ) Its not convincing because the majority of people living in poverty don't commit crime But as far as these insurgencies are concerned there are 2 main groups involved. Separatists aren't considered radicalized, they just want their own region The AQ\ISIS linked groups are more radicalized and they only exist in certain African countries and there Islamic extremist ideology only resonates with some people The vast majority of people in these indigent regions dont join them but they suffer the worst consequence of there ideology and they largely Muslim themselves Whats also making recruitment much easier is the brutality and military response from the Juntas and Russians in trying to crush these insurrections. Not a surprise of course to see the Russians fight war like this This has been going on for years in these 3 countries https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crmx7x3yjyko "A shopkeeper has told the BBC how Russian mercenaries fighting jihadists in Mali carried out the cold-blooded murder of two men in front of him and then threatened to chop off his fingers and kill him too. This is one of several similar testimonies collected by the BBC showing the tactics used by the Russian fighters as they waged a brutal counter-insurgency operation against Islamist militants in the West African nation - methods widely condemned by human rights groups." https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/03/28/mali-army-wagner-group-atrocities-against-civilians "Nairobi) – Malian armed forces and Wagner Group foreign fighters have unlawfully killed and summarily executed several dozen civilians during counterinsurgency operations in Mali’s central and northern regions since December 2023, Human Rights Watch said today. Military drone strikes on a wedding celebration on February 16, 2024, and during a burial on February 17, 2024, killed at least 14 civilians, including 4 children."

According to Google, ~817 MILLION people live below the poverty level (<$3 / day / person / PPP), yet somehow the vast majority manage to live their lives without becoming radicalized.

"Islamist radicals joined forces with northern separatists to orchestrate the biggest rebel offensive in the West African country in 14 years, with attacks on towns, cities, military bases, airports and homes of senior politicians." Slava Ukrianaiji

If you don't play on the highest difficulty setting (Path of the Damned) you carry around up to 4 camping supplies. So resting is not an issue. Don't hold back your spells too much or you will end up resting because of low health but not because you used all your spells. Players tend to hold on to spells "just in case a big fight comes" - but if you save the game regularly (and it also does auto saves for you) you can reload of you got into a big fight totally unprepared and rest before that fight. Having said that: melee Wizards can contribute in many fights without casting too many spells. Their Arcane Assault (2/encounter) and a single weapon summon spell go a pretty long way.

Thanks for your patience and for the helpful comments! I think I’ll go for the weapon and shield. Is there anything else I should be mindful of when playing as a melee wizard?

Yes, the two handed summoned weapons are a lot better than what you can buy/find at those times and a Wizard with weapon + shield isn't a very good setup. That is: unless you just want the protection of a shield and don't care about your weapon damage - in that case hatchet + small shield is a good option because they provide decent deflection and some reflex that stacks with your self buffs. But your weapon damage will be pretty atrocious compared to the summoned weapons. Medium and large shields will negatively impact your casting accuracy (-4 for medium shields and -8 for large ones) so I wouldn't recommend them. Wizards' base accuracy is already weak enough... ;) You can also take a look at a melee Cipher: that class combines weapon damage with spellcasting. In fact you need to deal weapon damage in order to cast spells.

Thanks @Mamoulian War for the understanding and @Boeroer for the complete posts! The fighter with high INT sounds interesting 🙂 So, if I have understood correctly, it would be better to create a two-handed melee wizard rather than using a sword and shield, especially as the summoned weapons are two-handed? 🧙

Yeah, it was not the best place to post, but I have moved it to correct one. Just in case, I am replying to you to, so the notification pops up, and it will be easier for you to find your thread again. 🙂

Isn't the whole fight insurgents with military force such a 20th century way of thinking? You want to get rid of insurgents, take away their reason to exist. It varies of course from case to case, but as far as I know, most insurgencies are the result of large disenfranchised groups with no future and nothing to lose. As far as I have been able to follow, most insurgencies in Africa and South/Latin America (and The Levant) are the results of a combination of isolation (information control), poverty (inequality) and rampant corruption in the "democratically elected" governments, meaning they are just totalitarian regimes with a better PR apparatus. If people have a job, a future, get exposed to other ideas, prospects instead of projects and something worth keeping, like a home, they tend to be too busy to worry about risking it on doing insurgency. But you can't fight income inequality, poverty, ignorance and homelessness with military forces. At best, you keep insurgents around because it helps those in power to tighten their grip on said power. Edit: Don't get me started on genuine democratically elected governments toppled by western powers because they were inconvenient

It is so. While shifted you are dual-wielding your natural weapon and thus Two-Weapon Style applies. There used to be an issue with the Stormblight form: the natural ranged weapon it has was considered a two-hander for some quirky reasons. But that got fixed with a patch at some point and now all spiritshift forms are dual wielding.

Still the superior city builder game. Skylines never quite scratched that itch.

Vampire Crawlers. It's not as good Vampire Survivors, but it's fun enough. Only played about 4 hours, so maybe it'll turn as ridiculous as Survivors does when you get far enough, dunno. Basically, Survivors is fun because it doesn't take too much thinking so you can play it while doing something else, or when you want to zone out. Crawlers takes a bit more thinking (only very slightly bit more), while being similarly simple, so it doesn't really fill the same niche in my gameplaying needs as Survivor does.

more gun than any other nation yet no one can hit one big slow orange target pathetic

Hi @Elric Galad , ty for all this data, it is awesome. Would you be able to extract the data of the Spectre of the wizard's "Ninagauth's Killing Bolt"?

Enshrouded - huge patch. Combat changes. Gear changes, mechanic changes. Forced skill tree reset. Feels like 1/4 of the long time player base hates it/quit the game. Not sure it's quite that bad, but nothing I care about so I may not update it. It at least has the excuse of Early Access re: mega changes. Crimson Desert - huuuuge patch. Initially broke stuff. Hotfix. Multi-storage changes. Skill changes. Nerfs. 3-tier difficulty mode added. Control changes (still can't rebind WASD or some others). Fluff added (more cats, more outfits etc). Pet's ability to loot for you still seems half-broken. Still the worst implementation (graphically) of DLSS (major noise, ghosting in some scenarios, blur for some people) I've seen in years and all they do is focus on ray reconstruction improvement (noise goes away if you turn that on, pfft). I'm going back to previous version and probably staying there until I "finish" the game. semi-rant I'm all for QoL (bigger stash? sure) and options (difficulty options? added end-game activtives? sure), bug, stability, and sure, extra cats, why not, but I'm so fed up with feeling like every 2-3 months (or weeks) a game is no longer the same game I paid for. And half of it, in my mind, is because the "masses" whine and demand that every game be like/have the same features of a previous favorite game, and the dev's constantly capitulate. So in the end it's all the same slop. Frustrating as I found these two games in a love/hate kind of way, at the same time, at least they felt a bit different. Every patch slowly removes that individuality. It's tiresome. Even Teddy's Heaven is going that way - pretty soon it'll just be another tired same-y "shop" game. Yes, I know, sometimes constant patching works in favor. I'm just saying. end-rant

Yes, but being occasional isn't a disadvantage per se. It depends on what the occasion is. If it doesn't work in normal fights where you don't really need the added defenses but makes the really tough fights easier it's just a good passive. It's like Brutal Backlash: it doesn't do much in most fights but makes the hardest ones ridiculously easy. Very occasional but yet very good. Now I don't consider Silver Tide to be a great racial ability - because you can make the argument that if you constantly get beaten down so it procs you might be doing something wrong in the first place. And if you don't need it much but only in tough fights it's... tadaa: occasional. ;)

We've had no luck at all. Tried signing out of Steam, signing out of XBox, uninstalling and reinstalling, nothing is working. If we go back into Grounded the multiplayer is working fine. It would be great to get a solution to this.

PoE is clearly superior to PoE. PoE plays in an obsolete genre which golden days are past. This genre was made famous by far better games that were released in a time where this genre was called for, but times have changed, and evolved. Only the obsessive need for some people to relive past times does not warrant the existence of this game. In the other hand PoE feels fresh and innovative within the framework set by its predecessors and does not fail to amaze players that are both new to the genre and hardened veterans.

Can't stand it. BG2 after you leave for the prison is pretty meh altogether but ToB is even worse.

I never finished BG2, so I never bothered with the expansions.