prodigydancer

He can but it's not nice to rely on companions in a solo run (even if they're temporary companions that the game forces on you).

It's not 100% on-topic but may be worth mentioning: one reason why I feel more like pushing myself to the limit in 3.0 is that combat has improved so much since vanilla. Even trash fights are more interesting. Positioning is more important, attack timing is more important (esp. with ground-targeting AoE). Movement is less constrained (I'd still prefer to see Engagement completely gone but the way it is now I can live with it). Finally, casting a spell is now a tactical decision even at higher levels. Back in the 1.x era I wouldn't blame anyone for being lazy and rest spamming because most fights were - let's be honest - fairly boring. Now it's actually fun to experiment in PoE. Brute force is (almost always) the worst approach. So don't rush. Pause and assess the situation. Try to predict what the AI will do and be ready to retaliate. You'll find yourself losing less health, resting less often and your journey will be far more enjoyable and memorable.

I admit I was skeptical about supplies during beta but since release I've yet to find myself actually limited by them. I certainly never had to buy them. My first playthrough was on Hard, then I switched to PotD. The game is challenging enough to my liking but it's not crazy challenging. If you know mechanics well, optimize your party setup and carefully micromanage every fight you can do a lot between rests even on PotD (even more now that Fatigue is practically gone). I don't like to say "L2P" but really, anyone who feels the need to rest after every battle should either step up their game or switch to Story Mode.

I haven't tried a barb yet, but you certainly couldn't be more wrong about rogues. My MC in a Paladin but I also added two custom henchmen (to clear the early game areas faster), one of them a 18-10-20-19-3-8 Pale Elf DW Rogue. It's a killing machine that utterly destroys everything on PotD and has 3 times as much total damage done as the next highest DPS guy. I imagine Hearth Orlan would be even more deadly due to higher Per and hit->crit chance.

Well, since it's a thread about writing issues... When you first arrive in Gilded Vale, Urgeat asks you "Have your ever sired a Hollowborn child?" even if you're a Godlike. Since Godlike are always sterile, this feels rather awkward (people are supposed to know such things about the world they actually live in). Worse yet, there's isn't even a race-specific answer option to tell Urgeat that he's an idiot.

Indeed. Label me storylover but if PoE plot and side quests are as much fun as WL2 I'm ready to shrug off any shortcomings.

BG was relatively easy to solo as a wizard. Get the Ring of Wizardry and MM everything to death at lower levels. Rely on summons at higher levels. Ironman still sounds like a challenge though. Which class are you playing?

Yes, of course. IE combat was low-maintenance for all non-caster classes to the point where pure fighters were limited to switching weapons and using consumables (until HLAs were finally introduced). And to be honest I can't recall anyone being especially happy about fighter gameplay despite how awesome grand mastery was for pure DPS. Every class needs at least some active abilities. I'm so sorry for not jumping on the "it's different from DA:O so we hate it!" bandwagon. Seriously though, while I agree that DA2 had issues, I think it had one of the best combat systems ever created. They managed to completely butcher it in DA:I though.

Usually but not always. Example: DA2 on Nightmare. In tougher fights auto-attacking didn't cut it - you had to use cross-class combos all the time so you wanted to have a fair number of active abilities on every character. Still, micromanaging a party of six high-maintenance characters can be overwhelming. Some may like it but I'd rather have passive options too, at least for tanks.

Remember kids, video games are supposed to be realistic. For example, PoE combat system = early Renaissance combat simulator 1:1. But with magic. Absolutely realistic magic. /facepalm

Ugh. I didn't know things were that bad. PoE is seriously starting to look like a lost cause.

TES is that way. This game was supposed to be a spiritual successor for IE games. I know it's a bit of a moot point now considering how far Obsidian has already deviated from the IE design principles. But I really don't see how changing the magic system so fundamentally would help with anything. Sandbox magic system fits TES perfectly because TES games are sandboxes. PoE isn't a sandbox game however and it isn't meant to be one.

You certainly did. I don't know why you insist on arguing semantics but fine. Replace "not threatening enough" with "too fragile". Feeling better? Good for you if you do but the problem the topic is about is still there.

Usually if an enemy can hit you at all it always presents non-zero threat. Minimizing incoming damage is often in priority (especially in "no healing" games like PoE) so basic kill order goes like this: healers (again, no healers in PoE) > ranged casters that can AoE or CC > ranged DPS > melee DPS > tanks. The actual kill order may vary from encounter to encounter but generally targets that potentially can blast you hard are a high priority. It has nothing to do with how well such targets can defend themselves. What PrimeJunta is trying to say is that any threat consistently removable before it can manifest itself is effectively not a threat at all. You're talking about threat potential whereas we're discussing the effective threat.

Oh no, leave Marxism out of this. Here where I live things are never boring (in a particularly bad sense, mind you) which constantly reaffirms my conviction that IRL boring = good. But in video games... Let's just say balance is highly overrated. Maybe in a purely tactical game (chess?) balance is everything but for other genres it's nothing but a fata morgana and chasing this ever elusive mirage has caused more harm than most people can imagine. I've seen so much fun mindlessly sacrificed on the altar of balance remembering it all makes me wanna cry.

So instead of trying to make other classes more versatile, let's nerf the hell out of Wizard to make it as bland as everything else. Perfect solution, thanks.

When they first announced "all builds are equal" as one of their design goals I feared it would be this way. What the team fails to understand is that nerfing good abilities doesn't make terrible ones relatively more appealing. It only makes good abilities relatively less useful. You can of course nerf everything to the ground which will only force people to use auto-attack most of the time. Then of course all classes and builds will be equal... as in "equally boring".

This is also situational. When I visit a wiki or a forum where obscenities, flame wars ad hominem attacks are OK, I know what to expect and I don't care. But when someone, instead of responding to my points, resorts to namecalling in a reputable publication's discussion area I can't help feeling backstabbed and out of my element. There need to be places for fun and mischief and places for serious thoughtful discussions and it's in the best interests of everyone that one does not intersect with the other.

Two months is probably a big enough window for a playthrough but I thought mostly about marketing. Something tells me that game journals will be more preoccupied with previewing TW3 rather than reviewing PoE. But we'll see.

Ah, I see. So it's more like D:OS KS this time. Makes sense alright. Still they could easily set a higher initial goal.

It's not setting, it's magic system. Setting is, you know, game world and lore. Yeah, how could I forget. Bind Harm to to all keys and put a big rock on your keyboard. Exquisite. Here I agree.

Good news but their KS campaign is way off. I don't believe they could (or would) develop the game for $100k. And stretch goals are mostly fluff - at least for now (up to $400k). Which translates into "for 4x budget we'll deliver just a little bit more than for 1x". Believable minimum budget is $1m.

IDK. Arcanum setting always felt pretty boring to me.

TES3 is a decent open-world sandbox but calling a game that doesn't even have proper dialogue system a CRPG? /shrug And rating BG2 below IWD? /more shrug --- Well, personally I can't even say I rate PST over BG2. I think they're both equally great.

Name the 10 or I'm calling your bluff.