Gairnulf

I'm left with the impression that Avellone left, at least in part, because of creative disagreements over PoE.

I hope you're right and I end up buying it. And if I've spent well over 100 hours playing it, that speaks for itself that it's a good RPG game. When I signed up as a backer though I was expecting something that plays more like an IE game than PoE seems to. Of course how much does it feel like the IE games is impossible to objectively assess, because you're comparing one subjective experience to another subjective experience, for the same person, with these being ten or so years apart. So, it's not unthinkable the problem lies with me entirely, but I still think Obsidian can make a much a better PoE game with the sequel, and they haven't shown their best yet.

The guy is right. Following the game's development sort of prepared me for what to expect at release, but if it wasn't for that, and for the sympathy I have for Obsidian, I would have laughed PoE off in the state it was in at release. IMO Patch 2.0 and TWM1 demonstrated that the PoE team can produce a great quality RPG experience if given a reasonable timeframe - 6 months if they start with an already functional technology base that they have experience working with. I expect TWM2 to be even better, but the original PoE will not be BGII-good, regardless of how much patching it receives. Regardless, no one can argue with the numbers, and the numbers say PoE was a huge commercial success. I'll follow PoE2's development very carefully and I'll form my opinion on whether it's worth buying pretty early, based on a number of specific design choices.

I just found this while looking at the "Traditionalist Western Art" facebook feed. I searched for the image, but I can't find who the author is. BTW, might be a good idea to look for "andrey shishkin paintings" in Google. Some suitable images come up.

Well, they promised 15 levels, they had to do all 15 of them. I think they used pretty much every enemy type that wasn't wildlife.

Hehe, that's what I thought too, just before I jumped. I thought, what the hell, this is a fantasy RPG. If one is justified jumping into pits, it should be here!

From what I've seen most of us here have radically different views of what constitutes fun rtwp combat, but I guess we can all agree that we can't realistically expect combat to become significantly different by now. So,the situation being as it is, to me it seems that immunities add variance to combat and are a small step in the right direction. This is as good as it gets, when larger steps are no longer possible. Lobbying for PoE2's combat will start soon enough, and I guess will be a little less futile than it was for PoE's combat, but still just as fun to follow on the forums.

How exactly can you get "trapped" in the endless paths? I thought you can exit the dungeon from any level?

I don't think anyone understands Zenbane but Zenbane. I know I've stopped trying to.

Just post it to everyone. Said developer countered nothing. All he said was the Barbarian was strong with high INT and MIG = 30.

It's not my point to prove that the Barbarian is weak. I think playing the game proves this by itself. I'm interested if anyone can prove me wrong. Go ahead, tell me your viable Barbarian build. I don't see it? Post the videos of how you fight and win as a level 3-5 barbarian. I want to see how effective your build is in combat. But none of this will be posted or shown of course.

Can you please cite what your argument is then?

I like immunities, I think they bring a little variety to otherwise monotonous encounters, which most of the time are resolved in pretty much the same way. Even when people reload an encounter, it's usually to try out the same strategy and hope for better RNG results, not to try out a new strategy altogether. Either that, or shift some gear, use some potions and food. So, I'm in favor of immunities. They don't "break" balance or combat. Those things were already broken at release.

All your questions in your last post are answered in my previous posts. I don't want to go in circles repeating the same things. You are misrepresenting my argument and arguing against things I've never claimed.

As a rule, I don't troll. I don't have time for that. I've got a lot of objections to your post, but as I said, instead of hypothesizing, let's just play the game and see which class is better. I guess we could agree (or I could agree) that the Barbarian starts out handicapped, but due to the incremental improvements in Deflection and Accuracy, there is a threshold around level 10 where he will dish out a good amount of damage and will have some survivability comparable to that of the rest of the party. Yet still, for his AoE effect to be significantly better than what an AoE spell might give you, you'd really have to reach high levels of Might and accuracy. So, where is the news here? Every class is a killer when you get your character to level 10 and above, relative to the usual enemies' levels. So, the Barbarian is strong when everyone else is strong, and in the early game it's comparatively weaker. If that qualifies the class for "good enough" for you, fine by me. I just don't consider it a good class. Regarding solo, I don't think there is hope for the Barbarian passing Act I on PotD. If anyone succeeds, let me know. I challenge you to try.

I guess when it's in a party much comes down to play style and synergy between classes. Which is good BTW, better to have classes complementing each other than not. But if we are comparing raw power in isolated conditions, the Barbarian can't handle encounters that other classes easily can.

Nothing is "about logic" in some arguments. IMO, dialogue choice qualifiers in games featuring a system like "persuasion" are always more or less arbitrary. That's because dialogue is not system-like, it's supposed to be the opposite - every person you talk to should ideally feel as distinct as possible. So it's difficult to have clear rules about when you will succeed or fail in a dialogue check. I think PoE portrays this really well. I can't think of many games which offer you such a variety of choices of dialogue lines, depending on your base stats and reputations. I can't recall a moment in PoE where I've felt constrained by the dialogue - I want to say something, but I'm not given that option. Then again, the dialogue choice qualifiers themselves are often arbitrary in games, and in the worst of cases, the writer had one "thing" in mind and you have to guess what he was thinking in order to hit the right line. The most simplistic implementation of persuasion is "you have the skill level, you get the "right" choice". PoE is much more advanced than that though, and less predictable at least on a surface level. For example, a character with above average Perception gets a certain dialogue choice in Gilded Vale's mill, when talking to the miller, but this doesn't produce a "good effect" from quest progression standpoint. Yet, I wouldn't say the bad effect is unpredictable - if the player really tries to read into the situation - the miller and his guards, the descriptions the text gives - the player should draw the conclusion that the authors have provided him dialogue lines which are dangerous, as well as ones which are useful. It's still up to personal interpretation, because there are as many interpretations of a text as there are readers. But the general rule is, consider the situation when choosing a dialogue line, and not every dialogue line with a qualifier is a "good" response.

Prove it. Post your Barbarian's build. I want to try it in my game. No, I'd rather compare them to a Fighter or Rogue, if that's ok. A bit funny there should be "classes we shouldn't compare the Barbarian to". It already tells me something about this class You are forgetting the Accuracy/Deflection/Hit points distinction. Are you playing on Normal by any chance? This question is easliy answered by... playing the game. And it's not "a great task". Just lots of RNG. Your barbarian has an Accuracy value of around 35. A shade has a Deflection value of around 70 on PotD. With -35 base, you have to roll more than 50 to score a graze, and more than 85 to score a hit. Meanwhile, the Shade will cause Dazed on you with every hit, which incurs: –2 Intellect –2 Perception –2 Dexterity –10 Accuracy x0.85 Attack Speed (independent of the hit to attack speed caused by the DEX reduction) Good luck hitting anything now. I say again post your builds, not unbacked claims.

What this story is missing is that your barbarian will die in pretty much every battle until he can stack his might anywhere around 30. Due to his extremely low base Deflection. Also, how many points to Perception, to compensate for his handicapped Accuracy, does this strategy suggest?

The characters even have recorded audio and coded logic to play those voice lines when their inventory is full. Encumbrance was apparently planned but left out.

My mistake, I confused the real author

I read Blood Register yesterday. I really liked Eric's Paul's style and characterization. I think his novella deserves to be developed further

Modern-day techniques for firing handguns to achieve an optimal combination of speed and accuracy only began to emerge after WWII. This includes the use of two hands when firing a pistol or a revolver. Up to the mid 20th century people used to aim with one hand when firing pistols, adopting a traditional sports shooting posture. That excludes the instinctive shooting technique, which uses the posture currently known as the Mexican Crouch but would still use only one hand. It's an anachronism to expect Early Modern times' shooters to use both hands for aiming with a pistol. In the 16th century pistols were still very expensive and were used almost exclusively in the cavalry. They would be fired at point blank range and using one hand, the other one holding the horse's reins. Pistols used to weigh 1.7-2kg, which is light enough to be comfortably fired with one hand. They would usually be carried in pairs, in holsters in front of the saddle. So, I don't agree that the alpha strike with dual pistols would be unrealistic. Although it would make more sense for an infantryman to have a cold steel weapon in one hand and take out and fire two pistols (if he has two pistols) in succession, using the same hand. If you hold a pistol in each hand, you'd have to either throw one on the ground, to take out your cold steel weapon (a bad idea, because that gun is expensive and you'll damage it), or put it back in its holster and take out the cold steel weapon from its sheath (slower). So, I guess it would make more sense, if you're at point blank range, to have a cold steel weapon in one hand, but the pistols' weight wouldn't prevent you from firing off two accurate shots at point blank range, one from each hand. I'm a bit of a 16th Century warfare geek. It stuck on me from university, and from working on an EUIV mod

I haven't played with enough classes to easily compare. Soloing has different requirements to a character's base stats than playing with a party, and if we keep that in mind, I'd say a DPS Rogue would preform best, once he has the items needed to summon beetles or shades. Classes who are more support-inclined and work well buffing the party will naturally be at a disadvantage for soloiong, but I guess you already knew that - Priest, Paladin. I guess some combinations of Ranger/companion will also be good, if for no other reason, simply because you get a "free" second party member. I don't have a definitive answer, but I'd bet on a Rogue which will have to pick his fights and use stealth until he has some summons items. The trick to the Rogue is that it has the capability to avoid combat and has the easiest time when it comes to picking his fights, which will enable him to keep progressing through the game's content and gathering XP where other classes might hit a dead end because they don't have the Stealth and the Shadowing Beyond ability. On a sidenote, it would make sense to go for Moon Godlike when soloing, regardless of class. Moon Godlike gives the character about 150% of its endurance pool - you get autohealed pretty much up to full endurance, when at 75% endurance, then at 50%, and then at 25%, and that's per fight(!). I wouldn't test a soloed character with this race though, because it would give me a wrong picture of its survivability unless I test all classes with this race. It is a real boost though and will probably be the biggest help to a soloing Barbarian, buying him enough time to try to score a few more attacks that may win him the fight. But then again, it would be an equally good bonus to any other class, although it would probably be less relevant for classes which can reach high Deflection values early in the game and are thus less reliant on a large Endurance pool - a Fighter or a Wizard will probably be less affected by an increased Endurance pool, but it's still nice to have.

I agree Firearms could have been implemented better. I guess that's the best Obsidian had time and budget for, and hope they improve them in PoE2. Ranged weapons ammo is something I've requested more than once, including in the Beta. Now that you say this regarding the pistol coming as a reward from the farmer, it's true. Ironically, people are also complaining about rewards from quests that feel too insignificant. You are right about the feeling of novelty of firearms and artillery being underplayed in the game's lore. You are also right about the curious absence of cannons of various shapes and sizes. After all smaller firearms began to be developed later than the larger artillery pieces. Judging by the designs of fortress walls, defense structures design in the Dyrwood hasn't yet responded to the introduction of artillery, like it responded in Italy by the 1540s with the "trace italienne" fortress design. We can attribute that to the Free Palatinate being relatively backwards in fortification technology. If we get to see the Vailian republics in PoE2 however, there better be star fort-designed strongholds there. BTW, do you have a reference about the Dyrwood in particular having a "booming gun industry"? I think you are asking for too much here. In 16th c. wars there was no treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, and the medical knowledge as far as I'm aware (read: I haven't researched) hadn't identified it as a problem. Armies were, in general, not conscripted but composed of volunteers who were in it, on the whole, for the pay and the loot. If we are going to analyze the realism with which PoE represents the equivalent of 16th c. warfare, there is a question that should be asked far before asking "where are the cannons" and this is "where are the horses". The early 16th c. was the period where the cavalry was dwindling in importance and the pike & shot infantry was rising. People with military knowledge in the game would comment on that trend if they have a chance.