Gairnulf

I thought about adding a poll, but there are too few people active on the forum. I made a poll last week, about how often you pause your game, and just 20 people voted. So I doubt a poll would show anything about how a feature would be met by the average PoE players. Yes, in the IE games you could find a container or two and keep lots of stuff there, but the inconvenience of having to trek through maps to reach this stash, without the "Double speed" feature of PoE, discouraged players from doing that. In PoE the player has every convenience needed in order to strip every area of every item - infinite stash, which is instantly accessible unless that's disabled by the player from the options screen, area loot feature, which defaults to 4m radius, and no weight to items. And then people complain how they have so much money they don't know what to do with it and loot loses relevance because they can buy the best items and ingredients for enchanting. What I'm suggesting would eliminate the need to swap items around party members' inventory grids, while keeping some weight limitation, so that you can't take every item in the world. Something else I forgot to mention - the IE games had items fading away after some time, if left on the street or in some "public" containers. I think this item fade, as well as dropping items in general wasn't implemented in PoE due to Unity-related issues, which the team didn't have the time to research and come up with a solution to. In light of that, the Stash sort of became the escape route - if we can't have the player drop items let's give him some container where he can keep them. I hope this changes for PoE 2.

I think changes are based on feedback and dry calculations of possible stats, not on any QA playthroughs done at Obsidian. If the base game is still being played in QA outside of just testing out if patch-introduced changes are working, this hasn't been mentioned or hinted.

Maybe part of the problem is that enemies in PoE don't seem to offer much in terms of tactics, compared to enemies in the IWDs and BGs, of those mostly in BGII? They just try to gang up on the nearest character, last I played the game with a party. I'd be curious to see evidence (posted on youtube for example) of enemies directing fire at different party members, or splitting between ranged and melee. They seem to act smarter in TWM, although I haven't tested combat thoroughly. As a counter example, I remember one of the first fights in BGII, the Duergar dwarves in the starting dungeon. They had three ranged fighters in the room's corners, one caster and I think two melee fighters. It's always been a tough fight for me at the beginning of the game, and more important - whether it's achieved by placement and assigned weapons or by scripting, they seem to be working in concert, their actions give you that illusion. That's what's rarely seen in PoE. I guess those are differences in gameplay that you need to have played a lot of IE games in order to notice. Most people immediately declared how PoE plays like the IE games, but that's so far from the truth it's not worth the writing to disprove. To add to Sensuki's arguments, here is one example of PoE's enemies predictability. If you have the indicators enabled, you can see what an enemy is about to cast while his recovery cooldown is progressing, and if your recovery is coming faster, you can beat him to his casting with some protection against his spell/ability, if you have one. This is just the UI effectively giving out the enemy's next action. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think in the IE games you couldn't see what an enemy is casting until it appeared in the combat log. You could make a guess based on the casting animation, but the few casting animations were shared between many spells, so it wasn't really all that easy as it is in PoE to see the spell's icon in the enemy's overhead circle. Finally, I really did use a masculine pronoun with the word "friend". I should type more carefully. In my native language nouns have gender and "friend" is masculine, hence the mistake. Anyway, arguing over words on a forum isn't interesting to anyone, and if Zenbane doesn't believe me, there is nothing I can do either way.

I think it's a matter of keeping our patience until TWM2 is out, probably 1-2 months after it max. Then the team will switch to PoE 2 and PoE rebalancing patches should stop. I don't know if that's really a good thing.

I thought I'd write this as a response to another thread, but since it got long and not related to that thread's subject, I'm going to post it here. I'm going off topic here, but since the stash was mentioned... I think the point of the stash is "convenience" rather than "save the player time". If the player wants to save time he shouldn't be playing a game in the first place. Some people have commented that managing the inventory was a tedious activity in the IE games. I say that managing the inventory was a part of PnP on which the IE games are based. If a fantasy cRPG for s.o. is "I go around killing monsters", then the IE games are not the right thing for them. Weight allowance and limited inventory space added fun for me, and probably for many others, while the limitless inventory causes unforeseen problems, which are evident by now, and I've mentioned previously. Not that the IE games' inventory management was perfect of course - enough to remember that you can fill up your inventory with very light objects and still be unable to pick up something, not because of its weight, but because your grid is full. I think the stash in PoE can be quickly fixed, if it just gets a weight allowance limit, based on the party's total constitution, or total strength. Then the stash would play the role of the party's combined inventory, with the individual grids only used for the player's convenience, to put items associated with a given party member into this party member's grid. Whenever something goes to a party member's grid, or stash, its weight is measured against the total party weight allowance limit. This would spare the shifting of inventory items between players' grids while still requiring the player to manage the total weight of the party's inventory. In case that fills up, the player can hoard items in containers which however would not be accessible from anywhere in the game, like the stash is, but in return, the weight of items stashed there wouldn't count towards the party's limit. Handling changes to the party's weight limit when party members are added and removed: Simplest solution I can think of - excess non-quest items, sorted by lowest price are "magically" sent to a container in the Stronghold. If the player removes one of the three party members he can have before getting to the Stronghold, then if the updated inventory size would exceed the new limit (after removing the party member), excess items are stored in that party member's inventory in such a way as to reduce the party inventory's weight down to a possible minimum, while removing the maximum weight for the minimum money cost of items.

Yeah I seriously hope the "if" in this sentence is just a red herring. I would love to see a Pillars 2 and if it needs to go to kickstarter for funding you just shoot me the link the day it goes live. I and many others will be happy to put our money where our mouth is once more. That's a funny hypothesis. I would back, but only under some express conditions, which I doubt would be met.

Lol, yes, she exists, beyond any doubt No, not a seasoned RPG player, no previous knowledge, and no prejudice to either game. I said "easier to read", not "finds the game easier", and the text stands there. Whoever wants to read it can read it, and whoever, like you, wants to twist words can, well, twist words. Nothing I can do about it. I used the verb "expose" to give a mildly ironic connotation to the story of me making such an experiment. Of course, it's not a real experiment, because it lacks the methodology - using control groups, etc. I conceded this in the very same post - "Still, not a definitive proof, but...". In case you decide to reply to this post too, make sure you read all of it first.

I've never been an expert in the IE games or their combat system. I was in my teens and was playing for fun. My conclusion after well over 100 hours with PoE and about 70 hours with the backer beta is that the game has nothing to lose if its combat system could be replaced by an exact replica of the IE games' combat. This may be attributed to nostalgia by some, but I doubt it, or at least I doubt nostalgia has a decisive stake in forming my view. Still not a definitive proof, but I've exposed a friend of mine to PoE and then to BGII combat. He had not played IE games before, and he was in favor of BGII as more intuitive and easier to read and tell what's going on. Those games are about 13 years apart.

I was using the same argument for some time, prior to the game's release. The game designer can never win against a player who has decided to use cheesy tactics. On the other hand, as long as the player finds fun playing, no tactic should be prohibited. That's the reason I dislike the decision that an area can't be left while in combat, though I'm not sure if this wasn't caused bu problems with getting unity to save the state of an area between exit/re-entry. I think this was the reason, not a design decision.

Yes, it was constraining, but how many weapons did you have to test in order to tell which one suits you best there, and how many do you have to try on to tell which one is best in your case in PoE? The variability is so great, that I'd just give up on the looking for what works best, if I have to compare every weapon I have, and the differences are often negligible.

There it is, I think. The naming makes it a bit difficult to tell, so I what the "Modified" time attribute. https://www.dropbox.com/s/lx5hkuvdh7o2n3v/b4182f2badfd4ca2922d3e8a26c5b32f%2010864354%20EndlessPathsofOdNuaLevel1.savegame

IMO the best thing from a roleplaying perspective is different weapons being better in different circumstances, which is what PoE has. I wish weapon proficiencies had more levels than picking one talent that makes you proficient with a whole group of weapons, and those weapons weren't so evenly distributed so you have every damage type in every group. I know this is against one of the design goals though. Still, I think there could be some compromise solution - one talent makes you a little better with a group of weapons, and later another talent lets you specialize with just one weapon from this group? Just thinking out loud.

That's not what I meant. I don't think it's illogical, but that's up to interpretation: 1. If you don't care about doing the job Kaenra sent you to do, you might as well not go to the house at all and just lie Kaenra without ever checking out what's happened to Purnisc. 2. If you've gone to the house, but chose not to investigate, you can give the ring to the mage, your character not knowing it's not actually Purnisc, and report success to Kaenra. 3. If you've gone to the house, chose to investigate, found Purnisc, you have the options of killing the mage, killing Purnisc, and after doing either, report success to Kaenra. If you chose the latter option, killing Purnisc, this would mean lying to Kaenra. If you intend to discover Purnisc's fate, then give Purnisc the ring, and then go to Kaenra and say "Job's done", that's pretty hypocritical. So you're truthful in the part where you've given the ring to the right guy, and not truthful in the part where you hide from her what happened to him. The new circumstances you've uncovered add new objectives to the quest, so it's only right that it can't be resolved that way. That's my opinion at least.

You can give the ring to the mage straight away and this will lead to quest solved, but in your journal there will be a hint in the lines of "I could go back to OKaenra right now, but I feel something's not right here". If you just give the ring to the wrong guy and return to Kaenra, I believe you'll get less quest experience than if you investigate. Once you discover the real Purnisc though, I guess this will invalidate the "quick" solution and you'll have to either play with the mage (accept you'll lie to Kaenra about what happened to Purnisc) or kill the mage (and tell Kaenra some version of what happened).

Have you noticed how more intelligent people can execute larger-arc hooks when they fight h2h? Or how when you lift more at the bench press the bullets you shoot cause bigger wounds? That's because combat performance results from your character's personality, and this is totally not unintuitive design aimed at having each class favor each attribute equally. Also, locking engagement with your tank at a doorway and spamming spells and projectiles from behind, what people do in the majority of side-content combat in the base game requires Sun Tzu-level of understanding of strategy and theory of conflict.

I do, I'll upload it in around 10 hours from now though. I guess you already have some hypothesis what may be the cause?

I find Durance the most interesting, because... I guess I know most about him and about Eder, and of the two Durance is the more troubled, which makes me wonder about how he got where he is. Eder is more at peace with himself and is more likeable, down to earth, social. Don't know all that much about the rest.

I was swimming in cash while I was playing with a full party and clearing out every area. Try playing on PotD with few or no party members and once you are forced to skip side content, you'll end up earning a lot less money. As Josh Sawyer has said a few times, the game is balanced around players who do less than half the side content. If a player milks every item out of every area, it stands to reason he'll end up having insane amounts of money. In my observations, what costs most is armor and enhanced/magical equipment. To be fair though, part of the blame for too much money being available falls on the game's UI being a little too convenient - the infinite inventory and the lack of weight restrictions makes it very tempting for a player to go into vacuum cleaner mode. I guess it's not difficult to come up with solutions to this problem, but as a great game designer once said - I'm not interested in your great ideas as ideas, but in how you image their execution. First, the stronghold. The (sadly underdeveloped/unfinished) stronghold was to be the chief money sink in the game but since it's unfinished, it doesn't present you with enough problems/upgrades to throw money at. It's easy to come up with ideas like some sort of prestigious club which has a regular member's fee, but provides some unique bonuses. Or with ingame offers for "investment" into trade missions or expeditions into Eir Glanfath. These cost development time of course. There is one particular aspect of the game, itself looking like an unfinished part of it too, which is related to the player's money, and that's the various currencies. From a worldbuilding perspective, I'm very happy to see there are different currencies in the game, but I wish they also had some mechanics tied to them. For example, if the player could be able to trade currencies at some loss to himself, or if certain merchants would accept only a certain kind of currency, or if we are particularly masochistic - would sell different items in different currencies. It sounds like a mess, but it may really reduce the problem of having too much money to know what to do with. When a large part of the money you have is suddenly useless to you because it's in a currency you don't need, it's more difficult to feel all-powerful. Having money have weight and limiting the amount of money the player can carry on their person/in the party, would have also been good, and in line with PnP tradition, although breaking with the IE games' model. The large quantities of precious metals could be kept at the stronghold (all the more reason for the player to invest in its protection), with the player and party members only carrying pouches holding a moderate amount of coins. Or what about simulating inflation in Defiance Bay - the more money the player has, the steeper prices become, by some sort of formula maybe. There's lots of solutions as I said, but they cost development time which sadly no one is going to put into realizing it. Managing player's treasury is a too low-priority problem, needs much work to implement solutions, it needs adding features/systems which don't currently exist in the game, and on top of it all, many players will feel frustrated by restrictions to their treasury, so it may be counterproductive with regards to making the game more fun. The best we could realistically wish for is for the stronghold events and costs to be rebalanced, or scaled up if the players' treasury reaches a certain threshold.

If I enable Big head mode while ingame, I need to quit to the main menu and load a game from there, in order for the change in the Options to be reflected. I can post a savegame if that would help, though the issue is present in every savegame I load.

I know you were just being facetious, but to defend GOG a bit, the lag in updates is usually because we have to redeliver a build to them because of a last minute change. It causes them to have to redo their QA and patching process. Because they are on Polish time and we are on California time it can mean a healthy lag in the updates. Luckily we didn't have to do any last minute changes with this update so they were able to get it out a few hours after we launched on Steam. Thanks, that's interesting to know. Regarding questions on TWM2 - I'm really interested in how your process of preparing combat encounters for the player has evolved. I'm sure I saw a big improvement in that aspect once I entered TWM's areas. Enemies' actions seem more varied, they use abilities, form a back line/front line. I'd be curious to hear more about the process, and if it's all down to the AI or is there some custom scripting involved for some encounters. In addition, I saw a return of a practice I remember from the BG games, of giving context to combat encounter through the area's design, so that it's not just a bunch of enemies placed in a room. It's small things like that, that really improve my experience. I mean things like enemies chatting just prior to noticing the player and switching to combat mode, etc. So, how come this trend started in TWM? Was it due to you guys being able to devote more time to details like this, was it something you noticed was lacking in the game so it became a policy to additionally flesh out encounters? Finally, regarding areas and dungeons. Knowing that Cilant Lis was among the last areas you did, and seeing it's one of the best in the game, I had high hopes for the area design in TWM, and this expectation was certainly confirmed. How did your process improve, tell us about the lessons you learned from working on the base game. Thanks!

Yep, my PoE copy updated. So, GOG can work fast when they have to

What the title says. I think it would be more fun if you get a little penalty to Accuracy, possibly it can be compensated by a small increase to the DR bonuses. This occurred to me when I noticed that I tend to drink at least two types of beer and one type of wine before going into difficult battles.

That's right, Infinitron, don't be so "gender-normative"!

Yeah, more info on the expansion would be great

Not updating for one year just to see pumpkin heads would be a bit radical :D Esp. considering this means missing TWM2.