speeder

thanks moderator And for the others, I will explain why I am unhappy with Obsidian: Point 1. the game itself, disappointed me in many ways, I really wanted to like it, and I had a blast at first, but the problems are too much, the bugs (that seemly will be mostly fixed as 2.0 gets up), and VERY questionable design decisions (I made other threads about them). Point 2. The problem is not of the shipping company service, the shipping package itself arrived without damage, the problem is that the game packaging was poorly designed, it is just a very, very cheap box, easily damaged, and Obsidian don't asked Paradox to make better ways to ship it, for example they could have put some packing filler in the package, this would have shielded the flimsy box without adding much weight, also they could have shipped it inside a stronger corrugated box, and so on. when I was a kid, I got gifted a couple games in boxes (still a rare thing, games are a luxury in my country), the boxes frequently had the paper (like Obsidian box has) but also a corrugated box INSIDE the outer box to give structure, I remember that some boxes were really sturdy, I remember dropping a box like I described (made of paper + corrugated box internally) on my feet in a store, and the thing was heavy and it hurt a lot, a flimsy paper box shipped inside some equally flimsy plastic is OBVIOUS it will not endure any trip at all, even if you shipped it by motorcycle from one city to the next over, any bumps in the asphalt would dent the box with impacts. If Obsidian choose to make more profit by making thin boxes, they should have used some money to make better packing, if they wanted to save on packing, they should have designed a sturdy box. And this is not just nostalgia, or pulling things out of my ass, or anger because my box looks like a dog chewed it, I went to a design university (I am not sure why, I prefer to code), and I learned this on the first semester, it was mandatory to learn in the first six months about packaging, I even had to make the packaging of a random product beside a game (I made a package for a "special edition" safety razor). I know Paradox handled the shipping, but I also know that the decisions with most weight on how (****ty) the game arrived here, were made by Obsidian, not Paradox, and not the shipping company (by the way: the shipping company itself warns on its website that they DON'T pay damages on products that got damaged because of poor choice of packing, and I am very sure that if I filed a complaint they would laugh at my face, it is clear as a clean glass pane that shipping such flimsy box inside a plastic bag is very bad idea). 3. I paid 15 USD for the box tier, expecting a decent box and decent manual, the box and manual delivered are no way worth that extra 15, I hoped that by paying 15 I would have encouraged devs to make good box and manual art, something that I consider a sort of lost art, since many companies don't bother with it anymore, I remember some games amazing me with thick manuals filled with cool concept art, and box art that looked exciting and amazing, PoE box is very disappointing, it has only the logo on it (iti s a nice-ish logo though), and is made of crap material, it is not the box that makes you excited to unpack it and keep it stored properly. I now feel that paying that extra 15 was not worth it. Pic I found on the internet of some guy selling his old games, notice the big paper boxes also have a corrugated-board remove-able internal box: http://i.imgur.com/QIbSV5G.jpg For example of great manual in the art sense is the Final Fantasy X-2, when I was at university a friend somehow bought a legal copy (one of the reasons of rampant piracy in some places is finding a legal copy to buy in first place), and then he went to show everyone, some people were almost orgasming while looking at the manual, it had some thick paper that is hard to tear, entirely coloured, perfect printing (ie: no misaligned printing heads), and awesome art all over it, with little bits of concept art here and there.

My Kickstarterted box finally arrived today. It looks like a dog chew toy, it is smashed up, and with tears on the box paper and shrinkwrap (that I don't removed yet so I can take photos later). I am already frustated with the game bugs at launch, the bizarre game design decisions, and now this... I paid 65 USD + 15 USD for shipping, you know how much that is in my country? 80 USD in my country is a week wage, for someone to buy POE in my country they would have to not eat, not pay rent, not pay electricity and whatnot for a entire week to afford it. Please, be considerate to people hard earned money. This is the first time I buy a boxed game with my own money, and the second time I buy a game for more than 30 USD (the first time was Witcher 2), if this is the service you offer, I will just pirate your games and buy them when they are 5 USD on gog.com, 1.5 USD for gog.com, and then 3.5 USD is what I think your work is worth.

I got an e-mail some days ago about my box being sent to me... I today clicked on the tracking site to check, and the box was returned to sender due to invalid address. I checked my address on Obsidian, and it is correct, then on the first e-mail where they told me it was being sent, and it was just plainly truncated, like if someone started typing and stopped, it is truncated in the middle of a number no less (ie: not in a space between words or numbers). I clicked on the link on the e-mail, but ended on Paradox support site, that don't have PoE on their options.... So I am confused, who I ask to do it right? (ie: ship the box typing the full address, not half of it).

Yep I personally will wait until the game is stable to mod it, and I will either put XP rewards on combat or remove lots of combat, right now the game is just annoying, with lots and lots and lots of unavoidable combat that give ****ty rewards (specially when the reward is like 1 ingredient after killing waves and waves of annoying monsters).

The wiki claims that Dragons are beast. And yes, the bestiary should be better... I found out this for the same reason (I was going to enchant a weapon, and noticed I had no idea what each type was, specially what the hell "vessel" meant, since it was important for the cleric spell thing... then I noticed I had to look on the wiki, and noticed that the dragon was on "beast" category, and looked sort of out of place, compared to the other beasts).

I am a Paladin fan and I wrote about it in other topics. The problem is not a "balance in single player game", it is plain outright bad design, games can be fun while hard, and can be fun while easy, PoE is repetitive and boring, yes I do have great hope that it can get fixed (otherwise I would not be on those forums), but PoE gameplay right now is press sneak button, fast button, run around searching for whatever you are looking for, and hen seeing an enemy kill it with guns at first, and then use the tier 1 classes to kill them in the same way every fight. Some classes at least you can vary if you want (even if it is not needed), but Paladins for example, depending on your order choice (Shieldbearers for example) are really, really, really boring, they are only glorified wooden stick swingers, they are bad at doing damage, bad at tanking, have no spells or really relevant abilities... the only thing they do "different" from other classes is that they have those crap auras.

Unfortunately the rules are retarded, you need high mechanics skill instead, and this only works while sneaking (meaning the "correct" way to play the game if you like hidden stuff is to just sneak all the time and use fast-forward so you don't die of boredom... I personally will wait until the game is stable, and then if by then there is no mod for that I will make one myself to change such stupid rules)

Whoa I like that!

I have the clear impression the best part is to just spam druid/ciphers and fighters. Paladins suck, wizards used to suck and got nerfed, and rogues have some nice capabilities but the stealth system make them also suck (ie: the fact that if anyone attack, your rogue is not invisible anymore, of course this also means that having more than one rogue is absolutely pointless, since after one attack the other become visible)

That's legit, I guess, but those bugs only happen for a percentage of people. They're not universal. I'm over 80 hours into PoE and I've yet to experience any of them. And the racial ability loss is hardly game breaking--the racial powers are pretty minor and make virtually no difference in actual playing. This bug IS game breaking. Although it might not affect much some characters, some builds rely 100% on the stuff this bug breaks (example: this bugs break the paladin defense habilities, and also breaks godlike habilities, if you made a godlike paladin... you are basically screwed, you just have a character able to swing a stick and that is it).

I think the game weapons balancing is very broken. Kana is the only character on my party with a gun. Kana is the character htat most killed enemies and most dealed damages, because of that gun... For example fighting shadows, Kana is the only character that could kill them, the melee characters would get repeteadly frozen and die, and archers would miss over time more than the gun (example: suppose a archer can fire 20 times while a gun fired 3 times, the gun would hit twice, while the archers would hit like 10 times), and finally, archers keep doing 1 or 2 of damage, while the gun deals 15 damage+ to those enemies.

I fully agree with Gromnir, except on this. Or rather, I am probably missing something. What are the advantages of the fighter, multiple engagement? late game DR boost? Wont the fighters defenses be lower anyway? As for the monk, I thought the conclusion was that the monk was an ok tank with some offensive capabilities (as opposed to the other two)? Obviously the monk can negate some (10%?) damage if that is still in the game, and will have slightly more hp/endurance, but somewhat less defense again. Reading this thread, it's like if some believe that D&D invented the name "paladin". I see paladins in PoE like templars or teutonic knights. An order of dedicated warriors/knights. Its just nostalgia, but I think you got it right according to the way poe paladins are described in the game. They have a much broader concept which basically comes down to being part of an organization dedicated to an ideal (i.e. an order). Note: I am a fan of the Paladin concept, not just the D&D one, and when I read PoE lore I thought it maybe would be awesome, specially seeing the Bleak Walkers (not the stuff I am info, but I am glad the game has it). But their gameplay is boring, and usually suck. There are two major problems with it: first, it was seemly designed to be a tank and damage cahracter but failed at both (example: bleak walkers are supposed to be full-offense, shieldbearers full-defense, and the first choice you have is between a healing spell and a damage bonus spell). But then they switched it to be a "leader" character, having a reliance of stats that improve dialogue and the aura... But the aura is not that good (At least not the one I picked). Two, it is WILDLY unbalanced between the orders, the wayfarers are pratically immortal, and a moon godlike wayfarer is immortal and make the party immortal, very overpowered. At the same time, the shieldbearers (That for lore reasons would be my favourite order) are just terrible. Also the game has seemly a heavy reliance on engagement mechanics for the tanks, and the paladins has no special engagement bonus, meaning they WILL suck as a tank, for example when assaulting Caed Nua, I have lots of problems not only with teleporting shadows and shades, but also with phantoms just waltzing their way ignoring my tanks and instakilling the back-line chars, the paladin have absolutely no way of defending other characters (at least the shieldbearer one), the phantoms could easily keep murdering my mage, and I could do nothing to prevent it... What I ended doing to win Caed Nua was very boring: kiting enemies one by one and hoping Kana arquebus would kill them (also another thing I am pissed with the game in general, arquebus are seemly the ONLY ranged weapon that is useful, bows are absolutely useless), and when I got in the main hall and got stormed by the spirits, I ended just placing everyone in that corner near the door, packed so that noone could teleport in, or walk around the party... this is very immersion breaking (seriously, fighting with eveyrone backed into a corner?), and boring.

By the way, I noticed hirelings make you have a net loss of money, since taxes are seemly tied to quest amount, but hirelings are tied to days passed, meaning that if you are a slow player, or rest a lot, or keep getting lost and moving between areas, you will lose lots of money. Also if you are not completionist, again, lose lots of money. And finally, even if you ARE completionist, theoretically at the end of the game the hirelings can drain your money forever, but you have no source of income (since you already finished all quests, thus taxes stopped, and nothing respawns, so there are no new enemies to loot and sell their stuff)

I don't think Faith and Conviction even work. At least to me it does nothing at all (And I have several points in the favoured stuff and no points at all in the unfavoured stuff).

I am playing with a laptop with crap screen. I don't even press the M button anymore, the map is almsot completely pitch black, I can't see anything. I know it is partially my crap screen fault, but there are plenty of other games where I can see the map perfectly fine.

Seemly the spells are terribly balanced. For example T1 damage spells can frequently out-damage T3 damage spells. Something is obviously very wrong.

This only applies to D&D Paladins... In PoE paladins are NOT holy warriors, they are just knights (just look at the lore: 2 are mercenaries, 1 is the personal guard of some **** nobles, 1 is some glorified tour guides, akin to real world Knight Templars before the crusades, and 1 is some diplomat knights). Also I am hating PoE paladins They are not good tanks (unless you use the glorified guides with AoE heal), specially because they don't have engagement bonuses (like fighters), and they are not good for damage-dealing either (almost all other classes are way better at that).

That is, of course, more true later in the game. But you're forgetting that (at least as far in the game as I've played) there is no renewable source of income, so it's not a completely fair comparison. It would suck to miss buying that great late-game item for your character by 86 copper because you camped one too many times. You're also forgetting the other incentives the game provides for running to town. Yeah. That's not going to happen, not unless you're buying 300 camping supplies. By the way, the stronghold is a renewable source of income to infinity in the form of taxes. Given that you get several hundred copper, It simply isn't a valid calculation. Of course there are other incentives for visiting town/stronghold. You're meant to have gameplay - it would suck if there were no reasons to visit the stronghold. The point is that there isn't a strong incentive to keep running back to town in the middle of a dungeon just to sleep at an inn and save your 75 copper. I've just gone through 4 levels of Od Nua without running back to town. That's not because I'm awesome (people will play on different difficulties with different sized and composed parties). I just find that when I try to go as many battles as possible without resting it adds to the tension, it adds to the tactical diversity (if Eder is on 2 health I can't frontline him like I always do), and it adds to the fun. I'm sure somebody will make a rest-anywhere mod, of course, so that if you want to rest after every battle, or whatever other combination, you can. I am currently annoyed that money is finite. How you get infinite money with the stronghold? I thought that you could only get taxes after a number of quests (and obviously those are limited, or there are repeatable quests? Or randomly generated quests?)

Yep, I found out this is... intentional :/ There is a interview that Josh said that they wanted to "Twist things a bit" and so they turned the D&D Paladin into Cleric, and the D&D Warlord into Paladin

By the way, I think that something that can be done to improve paladins without changing them too much (ie: a solution to make them "suck less") is balance better the order talents. I saw some people on reddit describing how the Wayfarers are absolutely OP, with they preventing your party from getting KOd all the time (ie: you only lose fights with wayfarers in your party if someone runs out of health and straight out dies). While like I said, I am using a shieldbearer... (That I picked based on the lore, assuming it would be a good defensive character, a literal shieldbearer), and... all they can do is give a small deflection bonus with lay on hands (That is by itself currently a very weak skill, not because the amount it heals, that is actually decent, but because either it is too limited to reliably heal lots of people, or later is too bothersome to use, spamming minor area heals from items and cleric spells is way more useful).

I love paladins, in all games, ALL games (in Age of Empires II I would play with the Franks just to spam Paladins with +15% of HP) So... Paladins on this game has some issues: First, they are supposed to be some elite fighting force, but they aren't... they are not good at tanking, and not good at dealing damage either. Figthers are good tanks though. Second, the lore of the paladins is not that interesting, there are five orders, but I saw few interesting stuff about them in the game, people rarely react to my char order, and then I found out the order talents are WILDLY unbalanced (the shielbearers for example are really weak compared to the wayfarers, that have some crazy AoE heals). Third, paladins are only really viable as tanks if you use godlike race (that can do stuff like crazy AoE heals or other stuff that is synergistic with some order talents). Fourth, the paladins defensive bonus at least to me seemly don't work, the paladin still die as fast as anyone else, even without their engagement (meaning enemies only hit the paladin when the paladin is lost in the fray... otherwise enemies are hitting the fighters, because of their engagement, or running around trying to reach the squishies). Fifth, although many places says that following certain behaviours improve your bonuses, I saw no such thing, following (or not following) the behaviours made absolutely no difference (and no, I didn't take the talent that changes that, in part because it was already not working, so I assumed the talent would be just wasting points).