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I'm not a Rpg veteran, otherwise would be even easier. I'll wait the next patch and i'll restart on PotD even if i don't like hardcore modes ( i just wanna normal challenge, not frustrating one) Just saying. If the game was too easy for you, there's still a step upwards you should try.

The only complaint I have about the resting mechanic is that 2 camping supplies is way too limited in PotD. Luckily, you can sometimes find new supplies inside the dungeons. Other than that I found the system to be a ton of fun (at least if you fight the urge to go back to town once your supplies run out).

Again, "Hard" mode is the intended difficulty. It's a setting meant to have fun as an RPG veteran. If you want a real challenge, go PotD.

I don't see why "rescue" mechanics should be needed if all the important gamebreaking bugs are sorted out. And if you play Ironman before those bugs are sorted out, then that's at your own risk. How often does a power outage happen where you live? I haven't had one for years. And if it does, I have no problem reloading the much older save state (you lose one day of progress in the worst-case scenario). If you take an item in a house or village, expect the NPCs to turn hostile towards you. That's just common sense. Also, I think the game warns you with a red mouse cursor when a loot container is inside a protected area.

So 2 characters are enough to flank? Awesome! Gotta try that out asap. For some reason it didn't come to my mind that the direction towards the target also matters. Bummer that long-range melee weapons don't trigger it. I'd say this is a bug (also, long-range melee weapons don't trigger disengagement attacks properly either!).

I don't think that there's any way to avoid this. Stores keep the items you sell to them for gameplay reasons (so that you can buy back your rare items sold), so they have to be properly saved in the save file. The only possible solution to this would be to save non-enchanted store-items as a stack, storing only the type of item and the item count. That would still leak into the save file, but it won't grow out of control, as the number of different item types you sell is pretty limited. For the Xaurip spears, for example, it would just save "NPC, Xaurip Spear, 63" if you sold 63 of them to this merchant. ... or just get rid of the WYSIWYG loot mechanics. I hate them anyway.

I'd love to see fanmods with weird/funny voiceacting, though... Men voicing women is a classic. ^^

Yeah it seems that 2 characters attacking the same target isn't enough for flanking. You need at least three. I don't know if pets contribute to flanking, though. If they do, then that would be a big reason to get a hunter in your group. Other than that, it might be a good choice to equip one of your low-might-low-accuracy characters with a pike or any other long-range melee weapon just to get the flanking bonus if you have two melees anyway. Not sure if the flanking bonus outweights the benefit of another gun/arbalest, though.

Had it several times. It seems that the flanking mechanics for enemies simply require more than 2 characters engaging the same target (so you need 3 or more green lines towards the target).

I'm pretty sure it works like this: if you are attacked by more enemies than your engagement limit allows, attackers get the flanking bonus. This makes the "Hold the Line" talent interesting beyond just disengagement attacks, as it effectively increases the number of enemies you can tank before getting flanked by one. However, engagement mechanics are melee only and also seem to bug with +range melee weapons.

Am I the only one who regards this joke ... kind of like an awesome idea? I'm a member of the "never underestimate your fanbase" crowd. The current team that brings us the german localization mod is doing an awesome job already (much higher quality than the "professional" translation we got) and I'm actually one of those guys that has a studio-level microphone at home. I'm pretty sure if there was a feature like this that we would get some quality fan stuff pretty soon (along with possible hilarious submissions that have viral potential)... The amount of required server-overhead, however, would be enormous. Audio files are huge.

A new AAA title every two weeks? Are you a console gamer? We hardly see one mentionable AAA release for the PC every month.

There's definitely something funky with that. Even the Xaurips at the lowlevel beach map west of Defiance Bay had higher Accuracy ratings than the Xaurip Champ you mentioned.

Is it just me or is 80% an acceptable rating within the usual fluctuation of personal reviewer's preference? It's not like this article is ripping this game apart... 80% is a good rating, just not as high as other reviews.

There might be something wrong with the accuracy values in later chapters of the game. I haven't played until there so far. I'm still between Gilded Vale and Defiance Bay, but had a lot of trouble with the extra large enemy groups (or single hard-hitters) pushing my PC's face in. Most of the enemies in my encyclopedia (note: lowlevel ones!) already have accuracy ratings above 60, so I simply can't believe that later enemies would have less than those. I'll report back on this topic once I reach the final chapters. Maybe there's something wrong with the difficulty curve, but at least in the first third of the game that I've seen so far, PotD is pretty darn painful (in a good way... except for the temple of eothas shadows... those are just cheating bastards).

Remember that PotD adds +50% to all mob stats (and more mobs in general, so add loads of flanking bonuses to enemies). A 64 accuracy becomes 96 accuracy, making the enemy hit for normal damage on every second hit at 96 deflection. Not counting in all the nasty debuffs that reduce deflection score. Again: are you sure you're playing on PotD and didn't get hit by the difficulty bug? I'm at a buffed 90 deflection already at level 4 and the amount of incoming damage on several encounters is insane.

Playing the game on the intended (note that hard is meant as the "standard" setting for experienced RPG players ... I think they should have labeled it different) difficulty setting with a custom-made party for roflstomping everything. Slowclap. You're my hero. Suggestion: try this again on PotD without a custom party. YES, the game has balancing issues. But come on, this game is out for a week now. I expect to get some balancing patches over the next weeks that will improve some of the imba spells and talents.

Yeah I miss that a lot in PoE. Basicly, as almost all characters are tied to the main story, you can not really pick them up early if you want. Like you, I enjoyed rushing the map to collect all my party members or get my stronghold in BG2 early. This was especially fun for those placed outside of Athkatla, like doing the De-Arnise quest right after visiting the slums or going into the planar sphere directly after leaving Irenicus dungeon to get Valygar. ... damn, okay, I agree, I miss at least ONE thing over BG2.

Btw, are you sure the accuracy values in the encyclopedia are already adjusted for the +50% stat increase in PotD? I'm saying this because even at a buffed 90-100 deflection my tank gets hit hard and frequently, by all kinds of trashmobs, not just by those bull**** encounters like Shadows or the lighthouse. I've made very different observations. I'm already beyond 80 unbuffed deflection on my PC and, again, the damage to the face is real. Without constant healing and strong usage of CC, my PC is going down very fast. Maybe the constant recovery of Fighters changes things a little bit, but then again I don't believe it makes a huge difference, considering I barely see Eder regenerating endurance in fight at all.

Yes, you can freely save/load in all other maps or with all other characters. Saving/loading before picking up the character on the same map is also fine. It only affects characters in your party and seems to only affect those characters in the pickup zones (not the corresponding sub-zones). There are other bugs, however, that might also affect your PC in a similar way regardless of the map (as they have nothing to do with this bug) that you should be wary of: Double-clicking items in the inventory, using "above 50% endurance"-procc items, using certain bugged abilities (PC ciphers) or the health bug on PC monks.

And it didn't come to your mind that that might be ... well ... a balancing decision? Think of it as synergies between moves in card games: get creative and use it to your advantage. If anything, it would be a missed opportunity if I was not able to interact with charmed enemies in the same way as I can with player characters.

I remember having an 80 unbuffed deflection rating on my monk already (buffed even higher!) on level 3 (haven't checked again since) and I got hit in the face hard. I think there is something funky going on in your game.

The companions are fine if you don't see them from a powergaming PoV. Just get creative and play them within their constraints! - Play Aloth as a buffer/debuffer/CC - Eder is a great DD when equipped with 2H weapons - Durance' stat distribution isn't that bad except for some missing INT ... he still does his job pretty good. - Kana has almost perfect stat distribution; if you catch him early, you also won't miss out on critical talent choices - Pallegina is a decent DD and supporter aswell - Sagani, Hiravius and Mother are decent; custom NPCs might be better, but they still get the job done without much pain

I'm using a heavily optimized tank built towards max deflection and still my tank got hit hard on PotD. I am pretty sure my custom tank scores more deflection that Eder could ever have even with appropriate build and talents. So, judging from that, I'd say it's a safe bet that you got hit by a bug. Either the "difficulty bug" that resets the game difficulty from what you initially selected or the stat bug stacking deflection and defenses way beyond intended levels. I was very careful to avoid all known bugs in my current playthrough, to play with a bug-free party. You should check out your savegames to be sure.

1) There is plenty of replayability ... it just depends on what you expect of the game. And this is really a matter of taste. I play this game for tactical RTwP combat. And this game definitely has that. I look forward to my first Ironman playthrough as soon as the most critical bugs are fixed. PotD is also a great addition to this game. I enjoy the balancing on PotD so far. Painfully hard, but never unfair. Well done. If you reduce replayability on companions alone, then yes, there's not much to be found, but I see plenty of reasons to at least run 2 more replays: playing with a custom party on ironman, checking out the companions I haven't used in my first playthrough, trying different RP dispositions, etc. 2) I have 3 second loading times with the game installed on SSD. It's not the game's fault that you aren't going with the time. 3) I think it is definitely better than BG(1). BG had basicly zero companion depth and no decisionmaking at all. Your attributes almost never affected dialogues, etc. ... I can't even understand how anyone can possibly find BG better than PoE. The writing is better, the mechanics are better (okay, BG used an established ruleset and didn't have flexibility here), there are meaningful decisions, the RP-freedom is way better (with stats, skills and disposition affecting dialogue). BG2 was better than BG in most of the critical aspects, but still PoE is imho slightly superior. The saving grace for BG2 is the pure amount and quality of content. PoE simply is way shorter than BG2 and doesn't deliver the same feeling of epicness. Still both are great games no RPG fan should miss out. PS: I never replayed BG. It was just a boring and tedious grind for me. BG2 was different; I played that at least 20 times over the last decade.