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I'm pretty sure there are no such contractually binding rules. Kickstarter pledges are glorified donations. In fact, Larian didn't hesitate to scrap the 10+ level megadungeon they promised their backers in a reached stretch goal the moment they discovered that taking the immense time and money to put it in the game would cause them to have to cut corners and half-ass everything else. That stuff happens. Intelligent project managers simply take it on the chin, learn from it, and then do what's best for the game, even if it means they'll have to suffer a few whiners complaining about broken promises later on. Did they? I don't even remember, and I backed D:OS. The moment the KS ended I knew the megadungeon would be a big problem. But I don't think anyone could reasonably have foreseen that it would be acceptable to tell backers, "hey it's not a good idea to actually make it." (The problem, arguably, was promising it in the first place. But that's one of the ways all first gen KS's went awry, from physical rewards to megadungeons.) This. I'd say they made the right decision lacklustering the stronghold content and instead focused on other core mechanics. The mechanics are there now, anything that further developes it can be done in DLC or expansions. Who can safely say what PoE would have looked like without taking out much needed resources from the megadungeon and stronghold? Maybe we would still have the crappy early-beta spell effects or combat animations? Maybe we would have much fewer zones in general? Maybe we wouldn't have the same dialogue-choice depth than we have now? The point is: both the stronghold and Od Nua (and also enchanting to some degrees) are optional content that you can skip without gimping yourself. If you don't like this optional content, it doesn't really hurt the rest of the game. And if the rest of the game is better for it, then why not? The expansion will definitely come. And I also highly doubt that we won't see at least a PoE 2 announcement before christmas. PoE was a financial success. Why in their right mind would they drop a successful new franchise with complete intellectual property just because some cRPG elitists didn't like the game? I know I wouldn't.

Here's some screenshots.

Then FFS they should just get rid of it. Wow, phew, this was an outburst... sorry... But it's true. Why does every game developer feel like an enchanting/crafting system is mandatory in a modern game release? It's totally not. Crafting is cool in sandbox games, but this is a cRPG. There's no reason why we need crafting; just get rid of it. It destroys the fun of discovering new unique magic items anyway ("Wooohooo, a magic item ... errr ... never mind, it got the same enchants as my old item.") I never understood why games like The Witcher had a crafting system. The answer is pretty simple; because some players really like it. The same is true for in-game houses, or romances. It's there to appeal to a portion of the player base. The fact that you don't like it doesn't really matter; it didn't stop you from buying or playing the game, and it is easy to ignore. If it does encourage more people to buy the game or increase their enjoyment, then it's a win from the developer's standpoint. As for crafting in The Witcher, that was one of those rare games where I actually felt like I needed crafting. It proved highly beneficial during the toughest fights. Yeah, crafting in The Witcher was needed. But it was also terribly, terribly inconvenient and I absolutely hated every minute I had to invest into it. And as you mentioned; on higher difficulties you were required to use it. At least the crafting in PoE is simple and straightforward and doesn't require me to constantly micromanage my inventory and resources. I just go to the menu and enchant what I want. Done. I'd say the enchanting in PoE is better than potion making in The Witcher for that regard.

All these things were kickstarter stretchgoals. So it's not like they didn't want to cut this stuff; they had to deliver.

It effectively grants a free weapon slot to unarmed monks .. Wouldn't you/everybody cry exploit if anybody used memory editor/console to grant an extra weapon slot on any other char ? ////////// I will use as a feature until/if ever confirmed as bug/exploit by a DEV. My conscience rests easy having reported the potential issue .. It effectively grants a free weapon slot to anyone, not just monks. It's just that monks benefit from this more than other classes. How is that a problem? A wizard traditionally benefits less from tank gear aswell and nobody complains about that. Seriously, it's a feature; no dev input required.

1) They didn't have a publisher insisting on deadlines. They were on their own timetable. So how did they end up "not having enough time"? 2) They didn't have a AAA budget, true. But they could have cut unnecessary things (stronghold upgrades, some levels of the mega-dungeon, etc.) and put those resources into polishing the core game instead. 1) They had limited financial resources. By the time the game got released, the kickstarter finances were already used up and they had to generate revenue from somewhere else. Obsidian itself was nearly bankrupt when the PoE project was announced on kickstarter. They HAD a time limit. Probably an even more rigid one than if they had a publisher in the first place. You know, developing a game costs money. How are you going to pay your employees? And 2 years to make a game is actually extremely short for modern standards. 2) They couldn't. All of these things were stretchgoals that they simply had to deliver due to the kickstarter contract rules. In fact, what we are seeing with the stronghold and Od Nua is exactly what you proposed: cutting resources from those things and putting them into polishing the core game. It's exactly the reason why stronghold and Od Nua feel so lackluster.

I agree on this. But we shouldn't forget that PoE was one of the first successful large-scale kickstarter game projects ever. I think it isn't fair to really judge them on some bad decision they made during the heat of the kickstarter campaign. In fact, even today lots of kickstarter game projects haven't learned the lesson on stretch goals.

Correct. But that's the thing. The vast majority of that reviewer's gripes with the game are things that are neither broken nor fixable. They are specific designs that are working precisely as the devs intended them. But the problem is that they're simply not fun, or to be more objective, they don't fit the reviewer's definition of fun. For example, he complains about The engagement mechanic. But the engagement mechanic isn't broken. It's working as designed. So what is there to fix? Nothing. There's nothing to fix. It can only be changed or removed.... And that would go counter to the intended design. If you go down the list of this reviewer's talking points you'll find that they're almost all about developer design decisions, and not really about "broken mechanics" or "things that need number tweaking". The engagement mechanic is literally the only thing that is a bad design choice per se and not related to either not having enough production resources or not properly balanced. Let's list all the frequently mentioned issues of the game and the possible reasons for them, ... you know ... for science: Issues that can be traced back to just not having enough time to properly balance test: Attributes dump or pump mechanics: clearly just not properly balanced. Interrupt is in fact an interesting mechanic, it just isn't strong enough to matter for now; constitution misses additional perks to make it more interesting for non-tanks. Binary armors: penalty on armors is too high; gap between tanks and non-tanks in terms of defense is too large; builds can be too extreme (no damage, maximum absorb builds) ... clearly just a lack of proper class balancing. Wizards too weak; Ciphers too strong: I can't think of something that screams "balancing patch incoming" louder than this one. Game too easy: again, a balancing issue Issues that can be traced back to just not having enough production resources: Missing C&C: scripting multiple outcomes takes a lot of extra writing. Even more so if we have long-term effects. Skills lack impact: again; extra writing and scripting required. Lack of puzzles: Puzzles usually require unique coding pieces that can not be re-used somewhere else, in other words: require a lot of work for a pretty small amount of content. Having more puzzles would probably need an entirely dedicated coder working on them ... which is not an option if you have not enough budget. Stronghold & Mega dungeon: Clearly, those content pieces were added because Obsidian was forced to add them due to the kickstarter promises. It's actually a good example on how kickstarter stretch goals can mess up your project. Then again, PoE was one of the first major kickstarter projects ever so it's absolutely forgivable that they made mistakes during their campaign they would probably not repeat for future projects. Crafting: See Stronghold Copy & Paste battles: Again, each encounter has to be hand-crafted and playtested. It's clear that the main focus of production was getting the core framework to work as good as possible, not necessarily to deliver encounter designs on the level of BG2: ToB. This is a common issue among most franchises; the first installment of a new franchise usually lacks encounter diversity due to production limits and all the work that has to be put into developing a new framework; later installments can shift production resources more towards content design. Missing class/race/gender/background interactions: To be perfectly honest, I'm actually amazed at how much race/class specific dialogue options we have in the game. If anything, we can blame Obsidian for not cutting the Godlike races (that were clearly designed last in the developement process and have next to none specific content, whereas races that were there very early (like Orlans) have lots of dialogue options. Engagement is literally the only thing that was just a bad design choice. Then again, nobody says that stuff like combat repositioning through 5-feet-movement rules can not be retrofitted into the game. Engagement is not a bad mechanic per se. It's just missing some extra rules to bring it more in line with the AOO mechanics. No wait, there is also Stealth. But seriously, if that is that much of an issue to you, then there's lots of other games that do it better. You know, stealth games have an entire genre nowadays... All this stuff is expected to be more or less fixed either via balance patches or expansion/sequel content. The framework is done. All production resources can now be focused on getting higher quality content. Think about BG1 again here: BG1 developed the IE. It didn't have any quality content at all because most resources went into developing the engine. Everything was mediocre. It were the other installments using the same engine that delivered the meaty stuff. I'd say give the franchise some time to grow. It definitely has a lot of potential. And now that PoE was a financial success, it is more than possible Obsidian will increase the number of developers working on future installments of the franchise; increasing it's overall level of content. Seriously, they'd be stupid not to (and plus, they promised at least one expansion anyway).

@Kirschrose: Gute Besserung! @Cynthel: Hehe, keine schlechte Idee... nennen wir den Kochutensilienhändler dann Oliver James?

It's a feature. Obviously, carrying sets of weapons around doesn't mean you can't use your fists if you wanted to. It's not like your hands are suddenly detached from your body just because you happen to have that bow on your back... Monks profit the most from this and that's fine. It's already an underpowered class, no need to nerf it further by removing this feature.

These are great discoveries that actually apply to all monks, not only DPS monks. As the game allows you to always use your dual-wield fists as a hidden extra weapon slot, this actually creates a dynamic in which you can purposely drop your defense on a tank-build monk in order to deal dual-wield torment damage when tanking. I'm using this for almost all encounters where I don't need all my extra deflection from 1H+shield (which is basicly every fight after reaching level 6). Just swap weapons to fists and welcome to DPS-city. I even took the faster weapon swapping talent for this and mind you that the dual-wield talent applies to fists aswell.

True. But in that case it's more a visual bug, than a gameplay bug. Then again, I think the displayed behaviour should[/b] be the intended behaviour instead of the opposite.

I don't think they did think it was necessary or even a core feature. It was a stretch goal. Wait, what? The enchanting thing was a stretch goal? ... I'm seriously starting to believe that all the bad things in the game were stretch goals ... If that is true, I'd say Obsidian made the right decisions: deliver the minimum possible product in stretch goals and invest the extra money into all the other stuff. So, now, we only need a mod that disables all stretch goal content and we have a perfect game. Seriously, this is what happens when too many people (as in backers) have a say in what gets created: we get a cluster**** of mediocre instead of fewer but higher quality content. I'm starting to think that publisher-developer relationships are a good thing. At least they rigorously cut on mediocre content then.

This, 100%. Yes, the review has a point in most of it's critics. However, a review is not about pointing out flaws and exaggerating them to absurdity. It's about a critical discourse of bad and good points. The fact that the only positive note in the entire review is about aesthetics says a lot. I mean, come on, really? Yes, PoE has it's flaws, but none of them is completely broken or unfixable ... in fact, most of it's major gameplay issues can be fixed either by simply adjusting some numbers (like giving enemies more diverse stats or immunities; mind you that due to the way defenses work, an immunity can basicly be soft-coded by just adding +100 to the particular effect resistance ... there's no "natural 20"'s in the game that override resistances), or simply by revisiting some of it's content. In fact, the devs already started doing this, as we can see by the undocumented AI change of 1.04 that suddenly makes NPCs run for your squishies as soon as your tank gets knocked prone. None of the aspects the review mentions are as bad as described. Things like the stronghold, the dungeons, the stats. They are functional and work. In fact, I'm pretty sure nobody who isn't overly obsessed with the game would ever think that they are broken. Again, nothing that a balancing patch and possible expansion/DLC can not fix. Some issues mentioned also clearly show a lack of interest in the specific field. For example, when he complained about the roster of mage spells being useless. I tried many of the supposedly useless spells and found them pretty interesting. In fact, I experimented with a tank wizard build already and found it surprisingly good. On a side note: if I had to review this review, I'd give it a 3/10 simply because the complete lack of a real discussion and pointing out of the many good sides of the game. It's just plain ranting with no constructive substance. TL:DR: Reviewer has a point, but it's nowhere as bad as he makes it sound. The game is not a turd. It just lacks some polish.

Enemies switching targets in melee is not always the case. I frequently use Grieving Mother with dual-wield daggers on cloth armor for maximum focus regeneration. Sometimes she gets attacked (which doesn't matter because she can literally perma-stun a single enemy anyway), sometimes not. I haven't figured out a pattern on that yet.

Then FFS they should just get rid of it. Wow, phew, this was an outburst... sorry... But it's true. Why does every game developer feel like an enchanting/crafting system is mandatory in a modern game release? It's totally not. Crafting is cool in sandbox games, but this is a cRPG. There's no reason why we need crafting; just get rid of it. It destroys the fun of discovering new unique magic items anyway ("Wooohooo, a magic item ... errr ... never mind, it got the same enchants as my old item.") I never understood why games like The Witcher had a crafting system.

I noticed today while killing the guards in house domean (demian? daruman?) in Defiance Bay, that enemies can shoot through walls. Aloth only had 6 health left in my game, so I parked him two rooms away, out of sight of the next battle (also, two full corners inbetween him and enemies). The AI of the guards seems to priority-target squishies (good thing imho), so the one with the Arbequs tried shooting Aloth, regardless of line-of-sight and with him not even participating in the fight from start to finish. How to replicate: Have an AI-priority target in your group (weak armor, low health) and place it outside visibility range; then engage combat against the gun-armed guards in house domean. Screenshots will be edited in later.

I think I recall reading that CCs have a priority, just like status effects like dazed, blinded, etc. ... a stronger debuff of the same group will overwrite the weaker debuff. So, for example, prone (which is considered stronger than paralyzed, as it causes a higher stat decrease than prone) will overwrite paralysis. I think this is intended behaviour, albeit it's weird.

I'd say this is probably unintended behaviour... It seems that all directional spells with collision checks take immobile objects into account; even if they clearly shouldn't obstruct the way. I often see line-type missile spells obstructed pretty much random aswell. I think it's both corpses and all other immobile objects like traps, some spell objects, etc.. ... the algorithm needs some rework.

It seems that the spell is very vulnerable to any obstruction along the way. As soon as there's something remotely blocking it's path (including corpses!), it won't work.

Scheint nur ein Problem mit der GoG version zu sein. Ich hab bisher immer direkt die deutsche Lokalisierung ersetzt und nicht einen zweiten Eintrag hinzugefügt (weil ich immer direkt von Github update um keinen Nexusmods account erstellen zu müssen) und hatte mit keinem der patches bisher ein Problem. @Xarathas: "What does the scouter say about his Alleschaden level?" - "It's over 4-timeeeeeeeees!"

And this, folks, is how backer content should look like. Best. Contribution. Ever.

It's a known fact that most untrained humans can't memorize a number sequence longer than 6 ad hoc (hence why most PINs you have in RL either have only 4 or 5 digits). Telephone numbers are basicly "cheating" here, as some parts of the number are mostly static based on the location we live in, so our brain uses a different method of memorizing them. However, this only applies to memorizing number sequences. There is hardly any correlation between this and memorizing anything in computer games, which have a strong visual feedback. Hence why I call bull. Genre conventions aren't a bad thing. Conventions help you understand concepts and make your game self-explanatory. Imho, this is a trait that PoE lacks with all those "special flavour" mechanics like Engagement, DR and deflection and unintuitive stats. Beneficial Genre conventions happen, when you read the name of something and instantly know it's purpose. You know a fighter is there to beat stuff and get beaten. You know a fireball is there to burn your enemies. Those are great genre conventions, as they immediately provide you with all the critical informations without having to read and internalize a tooltip. That being said; Party size genre conventions are based on certain core game principles. There's not much to gain from going to far away from those. And the "MMO Five" dynamics won't be changed by making tanking and healing more interesting. In fact, there's a couple of games that tried that already, like TERA online. With active blocking and cross-hair aimed healing, healing and tank classes are far more interesting to play than in any other game. But also way way more difficult aswell. Which basicly brought the community balance back to 1/1/3.

After examining lots of encounters in the game thoroughly, I noticed it isn't really the AI that is the problem. AI in the IE games was equally stupid and nobody complained. The real offender is the repetitive and boring encounter design that starts with Act 2. ... which is almost astonishing when you think about it. I mean; Act 2 is mostly Defiance Bay. A friggin' city. You know what made BG2 so much fun? Fights against human parties. I have absolutely no idea how anyone at Obsidian could ever mess that up? Now, at the end of Act 3, all I can say is: make encounters more unique. Why is there so much copy & paste? Why are there so few human party battles? Why are there so few mage and druid encounters? And why for ****s sake are the damn human parties so easy to kill?? It's not the AI, imho. It's all the encounter design. Add more mages and more CC spells to enemies and the game will be awesome. For creature battles, give them spells that will mess up tank & spank tactics... knockbacks, pushes, pulls... it's absolutely mind-boggling that all these mechanics are already in the game, but for some reason weren't ever used by enemies. Nerf Fighters. Reduce the deflection gap between tanks and non-tanks and give enemies a wider spell choice. Done. Game interesting!

You can't rest inside Caed Nua either, even before cleaning the map. You can, however, rest in Od Nua level 1.