Nomadmerc

Great class ability usefulness breakdown.

I would recommend a non spell based ranged character as a ranger over rogue having finished a PotD with a ranged rogue. I would review it as the ranged rogues have much less attack rating then ranger and overall the ranged rogue felt lack luster compared to a earlier playthrough I dual rogue who finished game with 150k damage done. The second playthrough on potD as a ranged rogue finished above the priest as well as tank in total damage done but below all others. The tank at the last auto save at the final boss had 18k total damage done, the priest 19k total damage done, and the ranged rogue 60k total damage done. But the barbarian had over 140k done, the cipher over 120k, the druid over 120k. Looking at the totals again with two different characters one with a ranged rogue vs the first on as a dual wield 60k as ranged 150k as dual tells me all i need to know.

Enchanted cloth only here. Finished game (potd) with a two weapon rogue with no regrets. Game plan was to either send tank(s) with a cipher casting the 'flank' spell then send in rogue to deal massive damage. Ended up with the 2h barbarian with ret armor having 110k rogue 90k. Saber is bar non best 1h weapon to use. Secondly any other weapon type that gives bonus to flanking.

fairly sure its stealth skill that finds 'hidden' items.

agreed on both should be option to have Thaos win and option to eat souls for self.

I have a different view on this myself as I like that there are backer npcs.

I think this may be a bug as i just bought a lvl 5 wizard adventure who has his lvl 1 spells all blacked out (lvl 1 area is blacked out and no spells are selectable). I also cannot asign any spells to the lvl 1 section. Just recreated this bug by buying another wizard and having lvl 1 spells all unable with the grimoire it comes with. If i switch the grimoire with another one it then lets me actually fill in the first level spell section.

Stats are fine. I played through hard as a 21 might, 18 dex, 3 con, 18 perception, 3 int, 16 resolve with minor problems due to duration of blind (6 seconds). Should be fine sneak attacking from ranged exp if you add in a character that can debuff. My thoughts after doing this is that early on the wood elf racial +5 accuracy is fairly powerful and I would end up doing more damage overall as well.

Path of the Damned, Expert Mode, and Ironman mode or bust! I can always rehire my min/max party members that die off as I am largely skipping the 8 npc companions. Just have to worry about keeping the main character alive so it will be something ranged.

I don't know - maybe its because people like Chris Roberts respecting his fans and always putting them first has spoiled me - but I feel backers should be number 1 priority in all situations. I suppose thats why Chris Roberts broke 75 million in funding and has its own free hype machine lessons should have been learned. Another game I bought gave out the steam preload keys months in advance. This is what should have been done!

Really really want it possible to mod in companions that have banter/quests to fill out the missing class options.

Signed, Arr Arr.

Iron man mode, so looking forward to this.

If the review was a metaphor for the blind person touching the trunk of a elephant then spot on review!

The poll expresses a point that the community divided. This stems in part to how many of us feel that 'spiritual successor' phrase thrown out there by the development team coupled with no combat xp is a bad mix.

Good suggestions. I enjoy the more impact filled combat where you get a sense you are really striking something.

Excellent concerns raised Mutonizer. Those of us that play or plan to play the Path of the Damned setting see the current systems lack of combat diversity.

The thread losing some focus lately. I disagree to those that say xp cannot be added this late in the game cause of workload or its like changing the core backbone of the game. If a large percentage of the current people backing the game report back that the quest only xp system is not fun then developers should make time to fix/change.

Also excited about the druid. Even more so if the shapeshifting has dramatic effect on playstyle (i.e., rogue, warrior abilities to a degree).

All this talk of Baldur's Gate encouraged me to load up that game again and give it a full play through. What I can comment upon with this experience fresh in mind is how (a) having kill xp part of this game made certain playstyles more enjoyable. The loan wolf thief. The loan wizard. The loan warrior, etc etc. Doing all of this plus the (b) a strong second reason that there were flat out dozens and dozens of areas that had no direct quest involved yet you could decide to go there and have a tangible reward for the risk. Maybe even a compelling role reason; paladin defeating forces of evil etc. Will POE have places that have zero quests involved as worthy to visit as Baldur's Gate? Or will these experiences be worth nothing--no compelling reason--no real chance at a risk vs reward but instead merely squandered resources.

What Sartoris said above is of great concern to me. The game needs more options for experience or this--avoid mob group a--yet fight mob group b scenario will be the norm.

POE has a definite storyline. Knowing this I would still like to see some choices have very large consequences. I want non trivial consequences. Examples of this would be lose out the option of a entire map/town cause that area is destroyed because of a choice, and or that area is non 100 percent hostile. A choice made causes one or more party members to attack the player.

First impressions with a brush on character creation, graphics, and combat. Character creation: I start the game up having already cropped a characters portrait and imported it into the correct folder so I could play a more preferred portrait. I look at the stats and am confused at first with how bland might,dex, con, etc, are and see clear diversity of build problems. This was a big let down as I really enjoyed the old BG series stat systems that promoted more possible build choices. Looking past this I found the general options for character creation there if not very meaningfully 'there.' Graphics: The game world was nicely done and with more polish I am sure it will only improve. The aesthetics of the initial town and several other places I traveled to were well done. The spell effects were mostly fine though the actual spell animations seem not functional. Moving on to the combat next. Combat: I had set my difficulty to hard with the strong desire to just try that path of the damned setting yet I stayed with the hard setting. Entering game my first engagement as a 'blackguard' aka Bleak walker was against the mobs in the second floor of the inn. My party defeated the encounter with both several pauses and micro adjustments mostly to fix the chaos of party members standing still doing nothing. I did not notice all the engaging things in combat that the IE games did right (i.e., task a character to attack and see a response from said character, task a character to heal and see a response, spells having a cast phase that is unique, select a single character instead of the entire party). These functions were nonexistent leaving me puzzled. The first experience with combat now had me wondering what else was 'missing.' I had my party leave the town behind having talked to one villager about missing pigs and a urge to go test my party against this so called 'ogre.' What ended up happening though was a long two hours of exploring the world--killing beetles, lions, etc--things that were aggressive and in my explore path as I typically do not follow the go do this quest and return to npc narrative. Upon spending a tremendous amount of resources to survive the various mobs dashing themselves upon my party (a party that was mostly clunky in combat at best and at worst not responsively rewarding) I noticed that I had gained zero experience. I chalked it up at first to a bug then upon reading the forums saw it was not a bug merely a design choice. The two hours now felt less a pocketful of interesting rocks and feathers found with stories to tell to a friend and more a bizarre series of clunky fights and random sights seen. This was more the case after I spent the next half dozen minutes completing a quest and now getting experience. Ten minutes of quest chain vs two hours of do my own thing. A Loud Check Mark yes for exploration, killing things that attack my party, and general character advancement for not following npc quests as a non spiritual successor of the Baldur Gate series.

Curious if we can pool the available modders together before the games release so there will be a team to get a better xp system in place quickly.

"So kill XP is essentially worthless? Why waste time arguing for its inclusion then? Serious question." (Zombra) Kill XP or a better objective based system then the current system is important because you can arise at situations where you spent hours in the current build with zero experience gained. More so for those of us who play on expert difficulty or path of the damned and because of the current design there is too large a incentive influencing our behavior to avoid combat altogether.