Fiebras

I rather like the smaller and denser maps personally. I think it allows for more detail and focus. And rven in these "smsll" maps there are times of pause like when crossing the river. Btw it would be nice if harvestable plants were highlighted like inventory containers. I didnt realize the sheer amount of ingredients that were right there until i decided to pixel hunt through every mess of plants. Granted Its nice that its kinda realistic that once you know how certain ingredient looks like you are gonna pick up on it when looking but many are hidden within the un-interactable plants. Which is also rather realistic too but.....yeah.

I think thats because you have several chants to choose from. Granted just selecting which chant to start combat with might be enough but I dont know how balanced it would be to switch chants on the fly since that would make it really easy to stack multiple chant effects by chant-canceling. Sort of like animation canceling in action games. I think having to choose your chant as your opening move in combat is fine to be honest . Its kinda like the Priest's Indiction or the Rogue's Crippling Strike in that you always initiate combat with them.

I always leave the modals on at all times as soon as I start a new game, theres no reason not to. I think combat would be less of a "cluster****" if we could clearly understand what each unit was doing. Just this patch we got permanent visual effects for modals that are on at the time which look cool. Though I suspect a small UI change and tickable combat log notifications may help with it. I want to make a thread about it later.

It is kinda "fixed" but remember that scrolls dont seem to work in combat yet so that might merit its own topic.

[Description of the issue] After teleporting to another location the Rogue´s model becomes invisible and takes no damage from enemies, not even poison. [DETAILED list of steps to reproduce the issue AND what to look for] 1) Bring roude to a large group of enemies (Spiders in thsi case) 2) Once combat has started and the Rouge is being engaged, make her jump/escape to a point across the mob of enemies (we are taling about 10 or so meters) 3)Repeat until bug is achieved. Having the rest of the party dead may help. [Expected behaviour] The rogue apearing on the targeted spot and operating as norma. [Other remarks / Comments] I was fighting the Spider Queen on Hard difficulty. Party was nearly dead and the Rouge was engaged by one or two spiders. Made her jump to the other end of the mob. She re-apeared a few meters from her starting position with an invisible model being unable to attack or move, still being attacked by every spider and the damage registering in the combat log but without the rouge´s health going down. Employed heavy use of the pause. Heres a picture: Waited for a while and her stamina never went below 28. Incidentally I had just reloaded a save before the fight and noticed my barbarian had extra visibly unused skill slots: I cant think of what is causing this bug. I might have experienced the same bug with the wolves but since I won that encounter the rouge probably re-apeared while in the spider encounter since it was a TPW and combat didnt end, the Rogue stayed glitched. Thats all I can think off.

Do you by chance have a scroll of revival on your cipher? I had two and had two angel icons. It happens with every scroll too. Protection, minor stamina, minor missiles, etc. All unusable in combat atm.

I noticed Corrosive Syphon did in fact affect party members a while ago. That thing does loads of damage (to party members since every enemy is a damage sponge atm). Easy half dead party. So I tried the enounter with several diferent characters on Hard. Should they fix poison dots people will probably complain that Adra beetles hit from half to 1/4 of their hp. Its fun though and not too challenging. Still havent lost to any beetles. To be honest I dont think they added more enemies to make it harder but to get feedback on enemy mob counters and for us to experience the diferent types of enemies. The mob count for that encounter is the same as before, only with the new Adra Beetle replacing some Stone Beetles and the mob pacement shifted around. If you think the beetle encounter is hard the Spider Cave is hell itself. I dont see how to even kill the Spider Queenpart with so many spiders. Ive only managed to pull one since the rest are so clumped up once one agroes the entire pack agros. They literally swarm your whole party and stunlock your casters because your fighter and barbarian cant engage so many of them at once. And since your offensive AOEs mostly come with frienly fire its quite the tricky situation. And its a rather cramped enviroment to boot so the new "pinball" pathfinding results in you being unable to move because there a million spiders. Its making me seriously consider the +1 to engagement limit trait. And as soon as battle starts your party gets webbed somehow. Its really fun though. A tricky situation and challenge. If I remember correctly the hidden treasure there is a decent ring. I would like it if more of the standard loot containers didnt have randomized loot but fixed loot (some already do but its mostly scrolls that dont work atm). I also noticed considerably more XP being awarded at diferent stages of quests so I hit level 6 as soon as I entered the cave simply by completing Cat and Mouse and picking up the other two quests. It feels very natural. Thanks to that I saw that the wizard has some pretty useful spells (expose vulnerabilities andburning wounds respectively) beyond "blow your whole party up unless perfectly positioned" and the fighter has more abilities than I previously thought. The one thing that worries me is how much camping supplies are gonna drain your funds as oposed to how much money is available in the game since atm I anticipate needing 2-3 rests per area on hard simply because of how much hp enemies have and how much damage they do.

For the record I really like PoE´s portraits. Though adding unrecognizable portrait characters like ones that wear helmets can help with the illusion of variety since they can be used for almost any race (escept godlikes).

You guys are worse than cats and dogs. And thats putting it mildly.

One of the elven portraits can sort of pass fo aumaua id only for the marks. (Its the white dress one). We havent seen any Wild Orlan (male or female), female coastal aumaua, female pale elf (we just got the male one), and I asume every godlike head type is gonna need its own portrait only for the sheer diference between them all and because they cant wear headgear. Big fan of the portraits so far though I think they should prioritize Orlan, Aumauma and Godlike portraits if only for the fact that its their OC races so you want to give people a good variety and feel for these races (a department the aumauma are kinda lacking atm).

Sounds like it might be the same thing preventing animal compamions from attacking: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/68310-bug-animal-companion-instant-attacks-attacks-dont-register/ Its probably a colission or attack range issue.

I think the characters should attempt (and be able to) to go through the selection circles, but only as a last pathfinding resource. That might fix the issue. What was the problem of characters going through selection circles again? It was combat wasnt it?

This mostly pertains to the Aumaua, namely their 3D character models compared to their offical art and general model inconsistencies. Currently the Aumaua model options seem to be made with just island Aumauma in mind and this creates a mess of textures in addition to the unclear textures the models present. Here is the female Aumaua model made to be as close as possible to the official portrait: The Body textures and markings are unclear and blurry resulting in a very mudled effect. I get that the idea is a skin with rich patterns but this mixture of base patterns seems to be made specifically for the bluish coastal aumauma and the ensuing color mix ends up looking messy to say the least. Not to mention that the patterns are blurred enough so as to make them unreadable. The same happens with the faces. The textures end up being blurry or not contrasted enough that the tribal feel is lost in a mess of blurry patterns. Up next are the male Aumauma and their portraits: Coastal Aumaua: Island Aumaua: Here we kinda have the same problem as before with the muddled textures, only the blue patterns (made clearly for the coastal aumaua) are more aparent, especially in the body. The body patterns are much more defined in the male model but the blue coastal aumaua tint kinda ruins things for the island aumaua character. In short: Muddy patterns make muddy character models and they look bad on island aumaua due to blue coastal aumaua tint. Regarding the faces these are the other two island Aumaua ones: Male: Female: They both also have the "coastal aumaua blue tint" problem. Now since the blue tint should be for the coastal aumauma it should look good on them right? Lets see: It ends up being the same mess due to muddy patterns. The faces themselves end up looking a bit uncanny. The concept art shows sort of indian-esque faces but we have asian-ish ones here and the mess of paterns disort the faces further. It just doesnt feel like "fish people" or the exotic race Im asuming they are intended to be. Instead it kinda looks like the Blue Man Group: african tribe edition. Note: out of all of them I think the second female face is the best one but im still not seeing the concept art in that face. The face shape complaint probably falls under nitpic though as I have no idea to what measure an aumaua is a fish face or just a human with tropical fish skin and teeth. Concept art discrepancies: From the limited art we have seen so far shows Aumaumas with clearly defined patterns. The Island aumaumas have brownish/tan bodies with white/beige and black/brown patterns. Theor heads are round and meaty with big "fish eyes" with very big irises. Coastal aumauna are blueish with white and yellow patterns. Their heads have eyes with small light-colored irises and seem more squared/elongated in shape Also, lets talk about the new guy: Just as a heads up, Aumauma dont have facial hair options in character creation. I dont know about the lore but if there is a portrait of a race with facial hair and that race doesnt have the option for facial hair then as cool as the portrait is its best to not put it there and just use it for the special NPC it is probably for. I hope im not coming off as whiny or entitled (and I deeply apologize if I am), Im just trying to state these inconsistencies and visual issues that may hurt this original race (which is unique to this game) establish itself and hurt the legibility of the character model itself. As a disclaimer I REALLY like the concept of the Aumaua and their concept art but Im just not finding that concept art translated well into the game. I am placing this in the bug forum because I do consider the body types and colors mudding each other up a visual error. If mods feel this should be moved elsewhere feel free to do so, though I think its important that the devs know about this as I dont think its not a character model error.

[Description of the issue] Animal Companion initiates normal attack animation but then cancels it and begins to spasm with the time bar instantly filling and depleteing but there is only a stutter animation/continuously interrupted attack animation, no damage is dealt and doesnt even appear on the changelog. Was using the bear. Have not tested other animal companions. During this companion attack sound effects (roar) are continually looped (only the starting part as it gets interrupted). Coupled with the previously reported area transition problems (upstairs from the inn) this makes the Ranger class currently unplayable as intended (with animal companion). [DETAILED list of steps to reproduce the issue AND what to look for] Make a ranger. Go to enemy. Order animal companion to attack enemy. Observe if damage or interaction is registered in the combat log. Lions may be better oponents so as to not have poison damage tick message spam. [Expected behaviour] The bear attacking with normal recovery and animation and its damage being displayed in the combat log. [Other remarks / Comments] Started as wood elf with Vicious Companion (+ damage to animal companion) trait and a Bear as companion. Also there seems to be some weird wording going on in the combat log: When moused over they display a miss: But this message was only ocasionally displayed and did not coincide with the bear´s attack spam. It might be the beetle poison being re-aplied or something as it didnt appear at all when fighting the lions. Re-loading from the main menu does not solve the issue. It seems to be a problem with the selection radious colision. It seems the companion cant "reach" the enemy so it continually loops: The Ranger can still attack just fine. Im not sure how colision and reach affects attacks conecting when theyve already been initiated but that maybe be a cause for the problem. EDIT: Stag doesnt seem to have this problem. It has a much smaller selection circle than the bear though. It might be because of the cleave attack though as he only did 14 damage. Edit: Actually im positive that the only thing registering was the cleave damage and not the main damage. EDIT2: Antelope has the same issue even though its selection circle is the same as the Stag´s. EDIT3: Wolf has the same issue. Hes the same as the Antelop afaik. EDIT4: Boar has the same problems. Hes the same as previous 2. EDIT5: And finally Lion is the same as all above minus Stag. He does attack slowers and without the spam/stwitchyness of the others. Also, the whole max health not being full when leveling up to 5 is still there but goes away the next loading screen. So, there thats all the companions. They all also exhibit the "cant go to nect area in scramped spaces" problem too. Hope that helps!

+1 Ive managed to go up after clumping everyone together and then changing the formation to resemble the way they are so that they dont try to move around. I think party position restrictions for area transitions should be much looser than they are now. I cant imagine how hard it would be for a party of 5 rangers + companions to go up the stairs (or 5 chanters + skelletons). And I do plan on making one eventually. Edit: Have experienced this in the area transition just to the left of the beta starting area. Before crossing the bridge. Edit 2: Happens with the Bear and Antelope. Much less annoying to move people around with the Antelope.

It's easier to emotionally connect with a character that isn't obscured by a helmet. There's a reason why main characters don't wear helmets. I agree, the aumaua face model looks really bad. Hopefully they change the derpy face, because I'm planning on making an aumaua PC for my first playthrough. edit: When you post large images put them into a spoiler, like you did with the last one, or an attachment or something. I would argue that because the helmet is a blank slate its much easier to project a personality onto it or on the person behind it. On the other hand you can view the helmet like a mask with a personality all on its own that either contrasts or reflects the wearer´s own: As for the more practical examples I find them full of personality on their own: Oh and I usualy try to spoiler big images but I didnt think it would be that much of a problem with those since the forum resizes them on its own. Fixed the previous post anyway. I wasnt aware you could report uncanny face models as a bug in itself so I had held off so as to not clutter that place with more clutter. It seems to me they went with a very asian face style for the models but went with an indian-esque for the portraits themselves resulting in a mismatch.

Personally I dislike both BG´s portraits and love all of Icewind Dale´s. I just cant get over the shining skin and bloom like they were airsprayed and that almost everyone looks like an american cosplayer. Im also an avid fan of well-used chiaroscuro and earth tones (and ID´s use so much of it). ID´s portraits manage to convey buckets of personality without coming off as charicatures. And the helms. Oh man I love helm portraits: It might be because I enjoy the rank and file soldier look over the heroic saviour look. Please make helmet portraits! Especially bascinets! They never get enoug love! "I aint got time for you damn bugs" Or the always beautiful Sallet (especially since we got cossbows and all that)? "Always ready m´lord" Even without the mouthpiece its awesome and has so much personality: "Just tell me were to shoot" Okay I should stop gushing about helmets (dont get me started on roman galdiator helmets [Murmillo is the best]). PoE´s portraits make me think of a middle point between BG´s bright/faded colors and expressive faces and ID´s use of shadows (without thick use of it) and brushstrokes. The overall feeling I get from them is "optimism" if that can be a thing. PS: Im rather miffed that the Aumaua face models dont look that good. Every other model looks great but the Aumaua models are a far cry from their portraits. I think its the face markings mostly though and the lack of plumb/meaty faces as oposed to the portrait´s to a lesser extent. I just want to be the bald cheerful awesome sharkteeth dude. But, but, but: Also there isnt an option for facial hair for Aumaumas while the new portrait has a beard. Oh fiddlesticks. /rant

Just to throw this out there but Barbarians and Monks are also tanks. There is no must have class, being able to clear the game with any party makeup you want is one of the core tenants of the game design. I agree that Monks and Barbarians have the tools to "tank" (wounds, and self heal+stam/health ratio respectively) but Id argue that the fighter´s design is the one best geared towards "standing there absorbing all the hits and attention" and in fact all his abilities are geared towards this. Not so much for the Monk and Barbarian who have more options available to them. But what Im saying here is that everyone has a Fighter in their team atm and we dont know how it is without one. Maybe the other "front line" classes are woefully unable to hold the line? Maybe having two frontliners is even better than having a fighter? Maybe the party does more DPS without the Fighter? Maybe spreading the damage out effectively as oposed to focusing it significantly extends the adventuring day? Thats what im wondering here.

Id like to see how a party fares without the fighter there to tank. No class should be a "must have" in party composition. There should be enough loot around the town or in stormwall to get enough money for a level 4 or 5 party member that can be in the front lines and with your own PC you have a second frontline fighter. Barbarians, Monks, Paladins, Ranger Animal Companions should be able to fill the front line role in teams of two (albeit not as efficiently as the fighter) without the need of a fighter. Id try it myself but I wont be at my PC until much later today.

@Zwiebelchen That works in JA and in things like X-COM because those are squad-based games were none of your teamates are truly indispensable and can be replaced with some ease. I cant see a CRPG were you go ahead without your main tank to let it rest (though the idea is interesting). Of course the same could be said of PoE due to stronghold companions and tavern custom adventurers. Plus, it could be a way to get you to switch your party composition or interact with diferent companions. But I dont think a system overhaul is necesary to make Health/Stamina feel right and understadnable

Has anyone tried having two tanks (one main one secondary)? The criticism against the fighting day and health/stamina issues may have something to do with the playstyle were they make one party member soak all the damage even if thats his intended role. Should you have one main tank and one secondary tank your adventuring day will certainly extend itself. When your fighter gets low you can switch him with say a monk, a barbarian, another fighter or have the priest + the secondary tank do the line holding bit along with the fighter in the first place to spread out the damage. While it may hurt your DPS the adventuring day should extend. In theory. Im not saying Health/Stamina dont need number/percentage tweaking mind you (they really do) but maybe we are aproaching combat and damage spread from the wrong angle (that is having the fighter take in all the damage when hes probably intended to be the center of the line while not all of it). Also I wonder how effective a party of 5 Rangers with 3 bears and antelope and a stag would be compared to the traditional 5 man party as you would get 10 effective party members to spread out the damage while also maintaining high DPS. Maybe throw in a lion or something to have more cc. In my experience the one number that is more OP to have "more off" is party members.

Things are notably better. The beetles are more challenging but I play on normal so Ive never had a TPK with them (except the ones underground. tight enclosed corridors with werid shapes kills the party.). The priest has a spell that increases resistances to all damage types as far as I remember. It helps to focus fire the wood beetles and knock them down as much as possible. On Formations and Pathfinding; I enjoyed seeing the party formation drag adapt to terrain and I was overjoyed at seeing that you can send your whole party somehwere with a click and with the whole party selected click on an NPC to talk to. The party will go to the first location while the party member chosen will go to talk to the NPC. I remember the whole party stopping while the lone party member went to talk to the NPC. If this was already implememnted it sure feels much more fluid and not a hassle. Though there are still some problems with pathfinding, namely party members bumping into each other causing a bit of a seizure. In the wolf area there is a narrow passage between the ruins and the river. BB Priest and BB Wizard bump-slided into each other for 6 whole seconds as they tried to asume their formations and earlier BB Priest was bumping into BB Fighter as they ran across town. It was rather comical. I think pathfinding neeeds just a bit more work to make it perfect. Movement in general feels much more fluid. On Targetting: There seems to be a new bug with targeting though. Cripling Strike´s target cursor never highlights for me when hovering over an enemy and th Wizard´s Fireball and other spells seem to need to target an enemy to highlight the cursor and dont seem to get cast unless targetting an enemy. Was playing on windowed mode though. Will see how to replicate this bug and keep venturing further into this new version tomorrow. Great job so far Obsidian!

Something Ive been wondering about is wether the source of some problems people are having with the current state of the game mechanics and clases is that IE games used established P&P systems and translated them to computer (with varying degrees of success) while PoE is using a new system (albeit influenced by P&P systems) with computers in mind which may or may not mean that all the fat (both useful and not useful) that allowed for the previous systems to be role-playable in P&P are not present in PoE or are simplified/streamlined/merged in such a way that it doesnt allow the same depth (because its meant to be just good enough for computer gaming) and its causing headscratches in some areas. I think Sawyer said in an interview he tested the system in P&P but I wouldnt know how to interpret that. What ends up hapening might be the equivalent of being served a light fresh meal (say a caprese salad) as oposed to a heavy heavily-spiced meal (say a home-made burger with BBQ sauce and bacon). Both are food and both of them can be served in equal quantity but one of them has a higher chance of leaving some people feeling unsatisfied (this being a matter of personal taste). And Im guessing some of the more vocal people on the forums are gonna choose the burger over the plain salad. Im just throwing thought proceses fueled by the need to make food analogies though and could be off the mark.

[Description of the issue] Edge paning while in stealth mode causes all the detection radiuses (allied and enemy) to be displaced from the character models. Saving and Reloaded seems to fix the iddue but unreveals the entire map expcept for the area you are in. [Details] The following were the circumstances in which the bug happened: 1) I was in windowed mode (full widow) 2) The area was Stormwall Gorge. 3) I was revealing the area and moving to the left. 4) A deer´s detection radius could be seen but the deer model was still in the fog of war. 5) At one point there was a faded black line being displaced along the radiuses. Im assuming this was the edge of the screen. Screenshots included below. [Files] Displaced circles with border: Displaced Circles: After Reload:

Yeah, it seems the more manageable wizard would be the idiot muscle wizard. All Might and Dex, no INT. Which kinda defeats the whole theme of being a wizard I guess. Also, fights tend to start and end so quickly that duration seems somewhat neglible.