Emerwyn

I don't feel offended. I feel offended by companies that make soul-less RPG to nick and dime gamers. To Obsidian I am only grateful. The bugs will get fixed soon, and the superb game that PoE is will remain.

Check the combat log in this screenshot: It's Path of the Damned difficulty, but even then, according the Cyclopedia, Crystal Eaters do 26-40 piercing damage, so not even some bizarre crit could cause that kind of damage, much less so when Pallegina is equipped with 20 Piercing DR. Also, I've been killing many of those in the area where I am, and never noticed such a huge hit. It seems to be a simple autoattack that decided to do that ungodly amount of damage. Luckily the combat was almost over and I had it under control but it can potentially happen in a chaotic fight, and you'd never notice beyond seeing one of your party members died very fast.

I just saw PoE downloaded something in Steam, it wasn't big, but it did spend a few seconds downloading. The game doesn't seem patched, though.

Kinda off topic but I'm playing Path of the Damned and my party is level 10-11 already and I've only done Defiance Bay and the Endless Paths, still in Act 1. If you expected more challenge perhaps you should actually go for the challenging bits of the game instead of rushing down the crit path.

Hmm yeah after further testing, it seems that the sound file is just wrongly assigned. I've had several of my characters successfully killing/critting/healing and going "It's not working!" or "Well that didn't do much" etc. At first I thought it triggered only when you did a AoE and for example it hit 7 enemies and missed 1, and the "It's not working" was due to the one that didn't get hit. But it's not that. It's really triggering a wrong voice message even when it's obvious that what you wanted to do was fully successful.

I've noticed the deeper I advance into the game, the longer it takes for Quicksaves to go through. It started with 1-2 second screen freezes which is fine, but now I'm experiencing ~10 seconds screen freezes per quicksave, which is starting to be more than inconvenient, since a quicksave is supposed to be, well... quick. I fear that near the end of the game it'll be taking 30+ seconds to "quicksave", and 10 seconds is being too bad already.

Yeah I hear it all the time when my custom priest casts Holy Radiance. Probably if there are 8 enemy targets and 6 friendly targets, chances are that it's going to miss one of them, and the message will trigger. It's a little annoying, but nothing big. Probably a good idea to fix it so that the "it's not working" messages only trigger if the attack didn't work at all on any of the targets.

Party member stats seem to reset when you drop someone from the party, or add them anew. That makes the long-term stats pretty pointless (such as total damage done, member with most kills, etc) since obviously the main character is going to have more everything as it's the only one that never gets swapped out. I report it as a bug because if it's not a bug, it makes no sense to have such stats when they're going to be wiped everytime you bench a member, even if it's just for a minute to check another member's equipped items (which is exactly what I did, and got the stats wiped).

I think people think too much of BG's characters because of the rosy retrospection they have on them. Like everyone in my generation thinks Sephirot was the greatest villain ever, and objectively thinking he's lame and cliche. It's just a matter of timing, growing with it leads you to think that nothing can equal it any more. Anyway, I like Durance and Pallegina, but I could just as well play with a fully custom created party and enjoy the game the same. I value PoE for being PoE, not for trying to be BG. If I want to play BG, guess what I'll do? That's right, I'd install BG.

Opinions, opinions. Mine is that PoE is a jewel that I can't stop playing, 92/100 (bugs keep it from being higher). Apparently my thoughts are in the same line with the vast majority, but if they weren't it wouldn't matter to me. It's me who has to decide if a game is fun for me, not anyone else. Luckily, the game is not only being fun, it's also being incredibly addictive. Then again, just my opinion, which is as unimportant as let's say... yours.

Alright thanks

It worked for a while, I remember when I got it I tested it and it was all cool. Now it doesn't work at all. I don't get the +6 deflection bonus for equipping a shield neither the +20ish Reflex bonus associated with the talent. It's just as good as if it wasn't there at all. Tested it several times, shut the game down and reloaded it, dismissed Eder and readmitted him to the party, nothing will work. Just to toss the numbers there. Unequipped stats: Deflection 75, Reflex 60 Expected stats after equipping Exceptional Large Shield with Weapon and Shield talent: Deflection 101, Reflex 86 Actual stats after equipping Exceptional Large Shield with Weapon and Shield Style talent: Deflection 95, Reflex 60

Today I decided to change a little my party for a specific quest, removing Kana from the party to get Pallegina in. After the quest, I took Kana back, and noticed that my choice of spells and all the custom songstrings I had edited were gone. The songs isn't a big problem because although annoying, I can just edit them again in a couple of minutes. The big issue is that both the spells and phrases I chose had been apparently randomized. No longer I could summon the 3 wurms, instead now Kana has the paralysing spell, and likewise I had picked a phrase to bolster allies defences, and instead now I have one that creates a icy trail behind characters. Both of those choices I didn't make, and I'm not comfortable with because they don't suit my party's play-style. I'm playing Path of the Damned difficulty, and practically no encounter is trivial, which means that switching my character talents around randomly is less than optimal to my success. I've tried reloading the game, but there is nothing I can do to recover my old custom-levelled Kana. This is an important bug that has caused me to drop Kana altogether from the party.

It would be unfortunate if you could not equip two items with the same bonus. For example, imagine that you have gloves with +2 M & +1 D and a helm with +2 P and +1 D. Currently you can equip them both and get +2 M, +2 P, and +1 D from those two items. If the game blocked you from using them together then you'd be missing out on the +2 M or the +2 P. Open up your character sheet and scroll down to Active Effects: Cool stuff, that's more or less what I was looking for. Thanks!

This is alike DnD and older IE games, also NWN. Only the highest bonus applies. That said, I wish there was a kind of tab in your inventory where you could easily see what stats are you getting from items, because every time I get new loot I find myself having to manually hover over every item I have equipped to see what I can possibly stack and not. It gets worse when you try to fit gear across different characters so none of them have a "wasted" bonus and you can spend half hour just trying to play tetris with your gear without having a quick way to check what you really have equipped at the moment.

I'm with the person that said that TAB highlighting could be removed if there was a stat or system that allowed you to passively highlight nearby loot containers (something like the NWN/DnD "spot" skill). Either way, feels like just a commodity to get around a limitation inherent to videogames, and not really cheating. The really hidden loot containers/doors do require you to scout nearby to be able to find them.

Hard to say what's my favourite. In terms of raw power, the druid seems to be up there. I used to struggle at some fights in my PotD play-through, but ever since I got the druid nobody dies any more. The druid is a monster that allows you to do things like keeping active a Returning Storm to decimate the enemies passively, then activate a Moonwell to offer unending sustain to allies, then summon badass elementals capable of dealing high damage or tanking creatures, and on top of that you can still move and cast deadly AoE's freely across the battlefield. Just sick. In terms of preference, I like my trusty Fighter. For a lot of people they are a bit too simple, but once you get some talent specialization they're quite fun to play, and makes you feel like a battlefield bully. Nobody can stand against you in toe-to-toe combat. If a caster flees, you pull it right into your face, if several enemies gang up on you, you send them flying in AoE, push them back, knock them down, and all around dominate them with martial superiority while being practically unkillable by anything other than some nasty spells. In any case, I haven't found any class to be truly underpowered, all of them are useful and fun. The only one that seems a little lackluster is Ranger, but I haven't given it much of a chance to make it into my main party either. Might dedicate more time to it in another play-through.

Criticism is necessary so that PoE2 doesn't become a complacent product that lives off the success of the first. Seen it happen too many times. Obsidian needs to be clever enough to separate the honest, useful feedback from the crapload of trolls and niche hunters out there that will complain about every little thing that it's not exactly as they want it to be. Gods I'm glad I'm just a player, and not a game developer. Nothing's as easy as sitting back enjoying a game that has thousands upon thousands of hours of work dumped on it and feeling that I have the right to **** on it and everyone who made it just because I spent half a day's work cash on it. In any case, my score for PoE is a solid 92/100

Yep I got Gaun's Share at level 2 and still using it on my Priest of Eothas. Pretty sure there'll be better flails out there, and you can always enchant one up. Might be more problematic keeping a Priest alive in hand to hand combat, but that's another issue.

I'm doing my first playthrough in PotD. Cleared the Temple of Eothas at level 2 with 3 party members, and the Raedric Fort at level 3 with 4 party members, and honestly, it's very difficult (lots of dying in certain encounters) but also very fun and rewarding. Now that my party has 6 and I got good talents and spells, I'm not even dropping a single member in most encounters. You can just say that you don't like it to be that hard, but that's the reason for there are 3 other lower difficulty levels. Also, I love running into unexpected hard/impossible fights. It feels like a real world. So I die, what's the big deal? I just load the last game and go another way. The game autosaves the whole time anyway. What I don't want is metagaming posters all over the place telling me what level I should be before adventuring in one or another direction, or a world that conveniently scales in linear progression to match my expected level of advancement. That kind of thing destroys my fun and immersion.

They let you play PoE in the church? Impressive...

I don't think there is an aggro system per se, but the engagement rules can and must be manipulated to keep enemies pinned to the toughest members of your party. It generally works well if you use bottlenecks and your tanky characters are equipped with the appropriate feats and gear that allow them to increase their engagement limit and soak damage. Some enemies like phantoms/shades are frustrating to deal with as they keep jumping around to kill off your weakest members, but I'm pretty sure that's designed to be so, and taken into account as part of the challenge and balance of that specific type of creature.

The advantages from having a full gun-ready party to welcome the first enemy from a pull is almost negligible in higher difficulty settings. At least in Path of the Damned a regular pull usually includes 8-15 creatures, and killing one off the bat (even if you were lucky enough to do that) doesn't change the encounter and the drawbacks from not having a second weapon set ready for action are tangible. Besides, let's do some practical thinking here. Let's say your average party has: 1 Fighter tank, 1 melee damage dealer, 1 Priest, 1 Wizard, 1 Druid, 1 Ranger. - Your Ranger is utilised to do the sneaking and pulling the enemy group. - Your Priest will be casting Interdiction ASAP. - Your Wizard will be pre-casting an AoE disabling/damaging spell - Your Druid will be pre-casting an AoE disabling/damaging spell That leaves your melee DPS and your tank to get a shot off before the enemy gets to melee, and I don't know you, but I usually utilise my tank as "mobile gate", as in, he's standing to the side to let the runner in, and then closes the path towards the backline, which effectively also disallows for the tank to get an opening shot. As I said, the shooting squad might work for lower difficulties where you find groups of four enemies that have moderately low HP, taking two of them down before the fight starts is great. When pulls have eight plus enemies you'd rather use your alt weapon sets thinking more in the long run, like for example, using varying types of damage in your weapons to overcome different DRs.

In Path of the Damned he's accompanied by three fire elementals, but even then you can play it as a pretty standard encounter. Myself, I sent my two melee in to hold the enemies together (Fighter tank Eder and Fighter Pollaxer main character), then spread the rest of the party across the room except my hired adventurer Priest that kept in range for the Level 2 pulse healing spell to affect both fighters (I always forget the spell names in PoE... will learn them in time ). Used Aloth to cast the level 1 Frost AoE spell which decimated the elementals and hurt Maerwald good, and the rest was pretty much using all the per-encounter abilities at will and auoattacking Maerwald to death. If I had known how the encounter played out beforehand, I'd have prepared some Elemental Resistance spells, which would probably make the whole thing quite trivial.

Yeah, I had the impression that it didn't affect the way the game handled the information you have about your foes. That information actually you gain over time as you defeat more foes of the same kind. I think the biggest difficulty factor added by Expert mode is not being able to see area of effect projections on your spells. That definitely adds difficulty to combat, but in the other hand I think it also takes a away a lot of the tactical factor that combat has when you are able to see those projections. I mean, a lot of the time you can't even tell who is just behind the door frame, or truly exposed to your cone attack, and things like that.