Madscientist

Personally, I also dislike that you reach max level long before the end of the game. For me PoE became much more boring once you hit max level because doing things felt less rewarding. This was also the case for fallout3, arcanum and maybe some other games where it is easy to hit max level. There are some games with exp scaling, which means enemies do not change but when you have a low level you get many exp for fighting them and when you have a high level you get very little exp from them. This way most players have about the same level at a certain point of the game, but those who are obsessed with grinding and min maxing will get a few levels more. Good examples are Divine Divinity, Divinity2 and Legend of Heroes:Trails in the sky FC+SC. But I do not believe that this will happen in PoE2.

OK, with Boeroer, MaxQuest, Andrea and me in the beta, PoE2 will be fantastic I just play the game (on normal or hard) and report everything I find. There was exactly one time where I used a console command: In BGT (BG1+2 combined) I saved and loaded a lot on the werewolf island. This produced the infinite stacking bug (of werewolf regeneration) and so the boss was fully healed a moment after I hit him with the stronges attack I could possibly make. There was no fair way to kill him. I still feel bad because of this. Do you search through the code when you want to find out how things work? Now I need to finish TToN before the beta starts. I will start after the next patch comes out (PoE1 told me: never play at release day) and I am a really slow player.

OK, this means: - The combat log for dots is wrong most of the time. - Dots and lashes can be completely eaten by DR (25% of normal DR, no min damage) - There is no obvious rule about which dot stacks with itself or not - There seems to be no obvious rule which additional effects require a roll and which not. Looks like there is some work to do for PoE2. I will wait for the the beta before I start with suggestions. As far as I know the penetration vs armor system will change a lot.

Well, there are multiple kinds of fights that aren't "Trash." The first is of course boss fights. Second is plot-related fights ("oh no! Lord Badguy's Minions are kidnapping Imoen. . again!") Third, and this is where they could really expand, is mechanically and strategically interesting fights. When I think "trash mob fights," I think fights like the ones filling Sun in Shadow -- just walk down the path to a clearing and Yet Another Big Ball of Shadows To Fight, etc. No new challenge, no bosses, just not interesting -- their only purpose is just to be a speed bump in between real challenges. Compare with, say, White March. Most of the fights in White March had really interesting and complex challenges. The one I keep pointing to is the one inside the foundry where there are some spirits across a bridge and you either have to send troops around a loop, or fight using long-range attacks, to take them out. That sort of thing isn't a boss fight, but it isn't a "trash mob" fight either -- it's interesting and a new challenge. That's what I want to see more of in PoE 2. I have to agree with this. In PoE1 I got bored of fighting the same groups of enemies again and again. I almost had to force myself to continue to finish the game. I think that WM1+2 were much better regarding encounter design. I have played IWD1, but I never finished it. Not because it was too hard but because I got bored from doing the same things again and again. I own IWD2, but I never started it. A very good example for encounter design is the alpha of D:OS2. There is lots of combat, but each encounter is designed carefully. It makes sense that those enemies are there, they have a reason to fight you and their positioning is also good. Some ambush you, some talk to you before attacking and sometimes you can avoid combat if you can talk well or have the right item. There are no groups of enemies who are just standing around, waiting to be killed by you. On a scale, where PST is on one side and IWD on the other, I strongly prefer PST. If I have the choice between the two extremes, an adventure without combat like monkey island and a combat only game like an arcade shooter, I take the adventure any time. Most RPGs are somewhere between these extremes, but please do not force me to die of boredom by letting me fight tons of goblins xaurips, just because the dungoen would feel so empty without. In that case, the dungeon would have a bad design.

Lots of people (including myself) have posted lots of bugs in the forum. Most of these issues have been fixed, although they managed to add some new bugs along the way. So I think the forum effectiveness is OK. The game was very buggy at release and I had to quit my first playthrough because of this. I started again and finished the game a few patches later, it was much better than. With version 3.0+ the game is well balanced (compared to most other single player RPG) and usually you can play it without facing game breaking problems. There is no game that is completely bug free. I was not in the beta for PoE1, so I cannot say which problems have been solved before release and what could have been solved if you did the beta testing. The PoE1 system has been created from scratch and there where lots of changes what each stat does and some other things. Now we have a system that works quite well most of the time. Tyranny (at release) was much better than PoE1 (at release). I could finish the first version without big problems. There were some bugs but most of them have been fixed. Because of the classless skill system the balance has been lost and it is easy to make very powerful (or very useless) chars. Some new things from tyranny will be in PoE2 (but fortuanatly not the same classless skill based system). Now we have a very solid basic system for PoE2. The main issue of beta testing will be to test if some game mechanics and class abilities lead to totally underwhelming or overpowered results.

2. Hmm, don't remember testing those. Iirc, marking and disorienting don't have a separate roll and are auto-applied if you landed a hit with your weapon. While overbearing and stunning make a roll vs fortitude (and that prone/stun effect can also miss/graze/hit/crit). Firebug proc also makes an attack roll (but vs deflection). Prone and stunn are "normal" status effects and it is clear what they do and against what they roll. They appear in the in game encyclopedia and can be produced by lots of spells, items and abilities. Marked, disoriented, and maybe some more are unique effects that only exist on a few weapons.

Thanks again Some questions from before that are not answered yet: - Do dots cause interrupt? If yes, only initial hit or each tick? - Do unique weapon effects that apply a status effect on hit (like marked, desoriented, . . . ) use a hit roll? If yes, against what defense? (not related to dots, but I got the question anyway) The mage spells do not do what the description says? I never used them because it made no sense to use a buff that lasts until you are hit. (Ok, I did it in the IE games for spells like stoneskin or some magic protection. But those spells protected you from the next hit completely, not just from 8 damage.) off topic: The good new is that I am in the beta of PoE2. I have the alpha of D:OS2 and while I was playing about 75% of the posts in the bug thread came from me. I was only playing the game in easy difficulty, no looking at the code, just playing around with some abilities. Larian games are fun but completely unbalanced, which can produce great fun. Teleport all enemies in the same pool of water and bomb them with AoE lightning.

One more bonus question: When I hit with a dot, the combat log says "Ability x causes x damage over y seconds." What happens if the enemy DR changes during the dot? Will the message in the combat log be wrong or will the dot ignore the change in DR? Or does the x refer to the base damage before DR?

Thanks, those where the examples I wanted. I cannot remember most spells, because I do not play that often and only on normal or hard.

- Dots and lashes are really complicated and it is not well explained in the game. You need to read this wall of text from MaxQuest to understand it. They should change the description to: "Dot of Doom causes 10 fire damage every 3 seconds for 9 seconds (= 40damage total) vs 25% of DR." For lashes it should be similar. - If I understand attack speed correctly, only dex influences everything, everything else affects only recovery speed. So the description for "whatever of speed" should be changed to "Reduces recovery time by 20% of base value." - I do not think it is a problem that bashing shields reduce DPS. The main purpose of a shield is to give you protection. It seems normal that you do less damage if you attack with shields compared to attacking with weapons only. - The description "increases damage by 20%" schould be changed to "increases damage by 20% of base value." The formula is: damage = base * (1 + mod1 + mod2 + . . . ) So if you already have sneak attack, a critical hit and an excellent weapon, a +20% damage talent will increase your damage by less then 20%.

Boeroer, you said: "Concerning INT, there are diffferent types of DoT effects: ones that do more damage with more INT and others that are not dependent on INT. The first group works in a way that INT adds more of the same ticks and therefore adds damage with ongoing duration. So here higher INT is better. In the second group the overall damage is fixed and gets spread over the duration. Obviously, in this case it's benefical to have low INT because the damage is applied more quickly. The first group are things like Envenomed Strike, Shining Beacon, The Dragon Thrashed and Deep Wounds for example. The second group would be wounding enchantment, Boar Tusks (druid), (Runners) Wounding Shot and also Enduring Flames (Goldpact Knights)." and then I asked: "If it is an initial hit + dot, the dot damage depends on the base damage of the initial hit ?" and you said: "Those are two independent rolls." I have the feeling that there is something wrong. When I look at examples of the second group (low int means the fixed amount of damage is applied faster), those are the ones where the dot is x% of the initial hit applied over time. The term fixed refers to the amount of the initial hit. This would mean there is no second roll. Can you give me an example where you have one roll for the initial hit and another roll for a dot caused by this hit? I know that there is a second roll if there is a status effect on hit, but at the moment I cannot remember a second roll for damage. When writing this I found more questions: - Do dots cause an interrupt roll? (If yes, is it the initial roll or each tick?) - I just wrote that status effects on hit use a second roll. I know this is true for "normal" status effects. What about unique on hit effects of some weapons (marked, desoriented, . . . ). Are they always applied or is there a roll? If there is a roll, against what defense is rolled?

Thanks a lot 3 questions: - By stacking do you mean the dot stacks with itself? You can apply as many different effects as you like. - Does Int coefficient means that the duration is 10% longer? In that example, the total damage number would be 10% higher than the base value. - Is there no difference between healing and damage? Healing is always against 0DR, I guess.

That means it makes sense to add as many effects to the initial hit as possible, because everything except the initial hit rolls against 25% of DR (except raw damage, not sure about dots). You made this here http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/87846-class-monksterlasher-elemental-lashing-retaliating-offensive-tank/ (off topic: maybe I use something similar one day. My paladin will be good, I already finished the game with a barbarien, so a monk might be a good choice for brutal bastard (= somebody with lots of mig and con who is beating his way through tons of enemies.)) ----------------------------- Would it make sense to change the description of dots to: "causes x damage/healing every y seconds for z seconds" example: The spell "Dot of Doom" causes 10 fire damage every second for 5 seconds. If high int increases the duration to 5.6 sec, a final tick of 6 damage is applied after 5.6 seconds If you take scion of flames (or might+), it would be 12 points every second. Somewhere in the game should be written that all dots go against x% of DR, excepts when it is raw damage. If you think that it makes sense, we might add this as suggestion to PoE2.

Ok this means: short answer: well, its complicated . . . long answer: - There are very few cases where low int is better, usually its better to have higher int (That would be good if it is true) - From looking at the description alone you cannot predict the exact effect of a spell (Like you will have x ticks every y seconds and each tick does z damage or healing) - When you read "causes a points over b seconds", you can be sure that it lasts b seconds, but you cannot be sure that the sum of all ticks will be a (even if we ignore DR) Actually I am not even sure if the damage/healing number refers to a single tick or the sum of all ticks. bonus questions: - If it is an initial hit + dot, the dot damage depends on the base damage of the initial hit ? - Lashes apply x% of the initial hit against 25% of the DR ?

How could I miss the most obvious choice for this setting: A talking parrot

- How is damage over time calculated? Lets say an effect is described as: "causes 30 points of damage over x seconds" Let us also assume that the enemy has 10DR My first guess would be: low int (x = 3 seconds) After 3 seconds the enemy takes 20 damage (30damage - 10DR) medium int (x = 6 seconds) after 3 and 6 seconds the enemy gets 5 damage ( 15damage - 10DR after 3 sec + 15damage - 10DR after 6 sec = 10 damage total) high int (x = 9sec) after 3, 6 and 9 seconds the enemy takes 2 damage = 6 damage total (3*10damage - 10DR, 20%min damage each) - Is healing over time the same (high int = bad) and the only difference is that the DR = 0? So the amount is always the same and the only difference is the time it takes to add x endurance.

I want a skunk as pet. And I want villagers to stay away from me when I walk around with this pet.

PJ (or any other expert for ships), what do you think about the BG2 video? I am not an expert, but some things seem strange to me: - On the last mast, one sail is in front of the mast and the other one behind it and both point in different directions. - The rear part of the ship seems to be made completely out of windows - This ship seems to be much larger than the one we will get. Do the people have the right proportions compared to the ship? It is hard for me to imagine how a normal person would look on this kind of ship. It looks a bit like both ships float above the water, but maybe this is just because now water can be much better displayed than 17 years ago.

A chanter tank. You can dump dex and have high per, int and res. Use the heaviest armor and some defensive talents and items. From lv9 onwards you destroy everything with the dragon trashed chant while enemies try to hit you. Your main problem could be not to die from boredom during combat.

I will play an aumaua kind wayfarer paladin explorer from deadfire. In the first game he explores the dyrwood and in the second game he returns home. I will do a completeonist run (= finish all quests), but I will try to keep as much importent creatures alive as possible (e.g. adra dragon). I just want to see how much of them do I meet again in the second game.

So what is the sense of having a 1 month campaign, when you pledge later and get the same rewards anyway? Can´t they just say "We need to get X money within a month, and when this happens you can continue to pledge as long as you want." I do understand that they do allow slacker backer. It would be dump to prevent people from giving you money.

It was most likely not oblivion. I played in in german, and the translation was terrible. Lots of text was still in english (and this was the better part because the translated stuff was junk). some examples: - The minor healing potion was called "TrdschwH" (supposed to be the short version of "Trank der schwachen Heilung") - The basic healing spell was called "fireball" This and the terrible level scaling (epic battles with goblins after killing tons of demons) makes me think that oblivion is one of the worst RPG ever. Maybe it was Skyrim. I finished the main story and lots of sidequests and I do not remember that the translation was very terrible.

Gromnir, why do you want a reckangular ship? In that case everybody has to use junks. The ships shown by PJ are defenitely good enough for combat at sea, mostly because they have actually been used for exactly that purpose.

PrimeJunta, are you a sailor? You seem to know a lot about ships. My own knowledge can be described as: Me: "The thing ahead swims on the water and it is bigger than a boat. That means it is a ship, right?" somebody else: "No, this is an iceberg."

I like Ydwin. She looks like the typical anime school girl who fights demons in her free time, in a 17th century european setting.