Borissimo

Oh, that's a cool touch! Are the rewards random, semi-random, or pre-set?

Oh, that makes sense! I remember screwing up my first attempt at logging in with Playfab. Then I quit the game, logged in properly with Facebook, and it all worked.

Thanks for your replies, everyone! I totally understand now why some of the stuff in my initial post doesn't make any sense. That's right! It wouldn't have to be the exact initial location view, just something that lets me see all of the locations and adjacencies without having to scroll around the map. Ohhhh, that makes sense! So if I understand correctly, the fact that the Retaliation wildcard is a manual roll, is a bug? Culling all the stuff in my initial post that doesn't make sense, here's what's left (i.e., things that there is some agreement on): - A roll button: some like it, some don't, fitting it in the UI might be the hard part - Option to forfeit a scenario: it's coming someday. Yay! - Menu option to auto-skip cutscenes so that you don't have to pass 2 loading screens - Some method of negating the need to scroll around the map

I'm really glad somebody asked this, because I've been wondering as well. The earlier it releases, the earlier I'm waking up that day!

This experience has given me an even greater appreciation for what QA people do. Alas, I don't remember the scenario power when my quest mode failed.

It was the same for me as for Zaister: the store initially did not work for me, but killing the app and restarting it made everything work fine.

It's weird. As far as I understand, "when you encounter" actually happens before "before you act." "Before you act" doesn't happen if you don't encounter the monster, but "when you encounter" does. Even though you didn't encounter anything. :| Yeeeeeep.

Starting character selection is a tricky thing. For players familiar with the game, sure, letting them pick their starting characters is great. But for everyone else, offering a choice is actually a bad thing. Here's why: say Newbie Norman thinks Valeros and Merisiel "look cool," so he picks them. Then he starts playing and thinks they suck. Now he has to feel bad because he has to live with his starting decision for tens of hours of gameplay. "How was I supposed to know which characters were good?" moans Norman. Paradoxically, not offering a choice makes a lot of players feel better. If someone hates Merisiel and/or Kyra, their thought is, "Well, that's just what you get" as opposed to "Gah, I did this to myself." One way around this problem is to gve 2 extra characters at the beginning but make players pay for extra party slots. For example, suppose you start with Merisiel, Kyra, Valeros, and Ezren (the classic Warrior / Wizard / Cleric / Rogue lineup), but you can only play with a party of 2. Wanna add a third character to your party? 2000 gold. Wanna add a 4th and beyond? 2000 gold. This way, the total cost of everything in the store is the same, but players have access to more classes. The downside is that players who never wanted to play with Valeros and Ezren in the first place get screwed in this scenario. Well, maybe screwed is an extreme word, but anyone who wasn't going to buy Valeros and Ezren has to spend 4000 gold they wouldn't have had to spend under the current system. Kyra and Merisiel are among my least favorite characters. My bottom 3 are definitely Kyra, Merisiel, and Seoni. Yet even so, I've been really happy playing with K & M in the beta. Both are simple and effective in a small party, and I honestly cannot think of a better pair of starting characters with which to introduce new players to the game. Ezren is too complicated / difficult with the huge cache of spells and no blessings. Seoni is too fraglie and requires extremely precise play. Valeros is simple and effective in combat, but his d4 wisdom makes him suck at closing locations, and you need location-closing flexibility when playing in a small party. That leaves Lem and Harsk, both of whom are weak at combat early on, a downside you really do not want in your freebies because it'll turn new players off to the game. Kyra and Merisiel have their own challenges, of course, but they use a wide variety of cards (melee, ranged, items, light armor, heavy armor, divine spells ... all that's missing is arcane spells), are effective in combat (Kyra can use blessings then heal them back), are resilient thanks to evasion and healing, and have good stats and a fair number of blessings to close locations. I have a feeling the dev team either knew the game very well or got some pro consultation from Paizo on the initial character picks. I do admit that the need to beat the whole game on all three difficulties with just Merisiel and Kyra (or else play a TON of Quest Mode) is going to put some players off.

I don't know, man. You're not wrong, but it seems like splitting hairs to me. My point is that whether I pick up a pice of junk in Mokmurian's fortress is causally related to what I find eons later staring into the lip of the Runewell. That's a kludge no matter how you phrase it.

I dunno, I think it's a bit worse than "solved with one more blessing." Most places, you need to hit a 6 to close. If your character has a d6 die, then you're already going to be playing a blessing, if not 2. The difference between shooting for a 6 and shooting for a 7 when you're rolling 2d6 is big!

It has been years since the last time I was as anxious for a game to be released as I am now for Pathfinder Adventures, but even in my state of utter hysteria, I'd still rather wait an extra week or two and play the game bug-free than get it on release day and lose my progress to a bug, if those are the options. Of course, my main hope is that those are not the options and Obsidian "simply" pulls off a clean release on the 29th.

Full disclosure: I'll be buying the season pass on day 1, so the opinions of f2p players (or mostly f2p players) matter more than mine. I hope this post sparks a discussion, since apart from one thread asking that AD1 cost 500 gold instead of 750, there hasn't been any discussion of the f2p model in the closed beta thread. If you're not in the closed beta, here are the specs if you'd like to offer your thoughts: Adventures and characters are bought with gold. When you download the game, you get Perils of the Lost Coast, Merisiel, Kyra, and 0 gold. Gold is earned as follows: Beating scenarios: Normal: 100 Heroic: 200 Legendary: 300 Within scenarios: Kill a monster: 1 gold Kill a henchman: 2 gold Close a location: 6 gold Adventures and extra characters can be bought with gold: Base set characters (Valeros, Lem, Harsk, Ezren, Seoni): 2000 gold each Deck C characters (Amiri, Lini, Sajan, Seelah): 4000 gold each AD1 (Burnt Offerings): 750 gold AD2-6: 4000 gold each Whenever a popular game is f2p, a discussion always emerges as to whether the game is "really" f2p. My personal opinion is that with the exclusion of games that are blatantly exploitative ("Oh my! It seems you've run out of ENERGY! Would you like to buy a POTION?"), no f2p game is objectively "really" f2p or "really" not. Rather, the fairness of the model is relative to each player. For example, in Hearthstone, if you're only interested in Arena and you're good at it, you can enjoy the entirety of the game easily without paying a dime. By contrast, if you're bad at Arena or just want to play ladder, then you'll think the f2p model is an utter sham, because the amount of grinding necessary to build competitive ladder decks is obscene. So for Pathfinder, I think it's okay to accept that some f2p players will be disappointed with the gold gain and/or the prices. The question we have to ask is not, "Will this model make everyone happy?" but rather, "Are there at least some players who will be able to enjoy the game f2p and not feel unduly burdened?" My tl;dr opinion is "Yes." It seems to me that Obsidian has chosen the price points very astutely, so that a player who wants to unlock everything without grinding can do so and will need to experience everything Obsidian has created in order to do so. Here's the math behind my opinion: Beat Perils + AD1 on normal: 800 gold Beat Perils + AD1 on heroic: 1600 gold Beat Perils + AD1 on legendary: 2400 gold Purchase AD1: - 750 gold Average "incidental" gold gain playing with 2 characters (based on my experience): (40 gold per scenario) x (24 scenarios) = 960 Thus, accumulated income after beating AD1 through legendary = 800 + 1600 + 2400 - 750 + 960 = 5010 At this point, our f2p player drops 4000 gold to buy AD2, leaving her with just over 1000 gold. Assuming AD2-AD6 work the same way, it's easy to calculate how much our player will lose per adventure when buying the one after it: Beat 5 normal scenarios: 500 gold Beat 5 heroic scenarios: 1000 gold Beat 5 legendary scenarios: 1500 gold "Incidental" income: 15 scenarios x 40 gold = 600 gold Purchase the next scenario: -4000 gold This produces a 500 + 1000 + 1500 + 600 - 4000 = 400 gold deficit per adventure. Since our f2p player has ~1000 gold in the bank after buying AD2, she will have ~600 gold after buying AD3, ~200 gold after buying AD4, and she'll be ~200 gold shy of buying AD5 after she beats AD4. At this point, to avoid grinding, she'll need to play a few scenarios of Quest Mode to buy AD5. After beating AD5, she'll need to go deeper into Quest Mode (more than before) to acquire AD6. And finally, after beating AD6, she'll have ~3600 gold -- not quite enough to buy two base set characters. She'll need to hit up Quest Mode once again to get up to 4000 gold, which will allow her to buy two additional base set characters. The player can play through the whole game again with the new characters (or with Kyra + Merisiel + the 2 new characters). Since she doesn't have to buy the adventures or unlock the difficulty modes this time (really hoping Obsidian makes me right about that one! ), she can play straight through on Legendary if she wishes and all of the gold she collects doing this is pure profit: Reward for 33 scenarios x 300 gold = 9900 "incidental" gold from 33 scenarios = 40 x 33 = 1320 [note: this will be higher with a 4-character party] That's 9900 + 1320 = 11,220 gold (or more) after the second playthrough of the game. At this point the player can buy the remaining 3 base set characters and 1 C-deck character, or (if she plays a bit more Quest Mode) either 2 C-deck characters and 2 base set characters or simply 3 C-deck characters. Unless her "dream team" 6-character party involves all 4 C-deck characters, she can now play through the game with her dream team party and unlock the remaining characters afterward if she wishes. So, in sum, a player can enjoy the entirety of the game f2p within a reasonable time frame and zero grinding provided she meets the following criteria: - She's okay with playing with Kyra and Merisiel for a long time - She enjoys beating everything on all 3 difficulties on at least her first playthrough - She doesn't mind playing for a long time before playing a 4-character party, and an even longer time before playing a 5- or 6- character party - Her "dream team" doesn't involve all 4 of the C-deck characters Of course, a player who wants to play through Rise of the Runelords with 4-6 characters right away will look at the character costs, look at the adventure costs, and write an angry rant on the forums about how the f2p model is bull honkey. But on closer inspection, it all seems pretty legit. If it weren't for the higher difficulty modes or quest mode, I would argue for much lower prices. But because those higher difficulties and the quest mode do exist, a player can genuinely experience everything the game has to offer and unlock all of the adventures and characters without having to grind a single scenario. (By "grind" I mean "do the exact same thing more than once.") I think this is a very generous f2p system, and I just hope it's not so generous that too many players end up not giving Obsidian any money. My one critique of the f2p model is the option to buy 200 a gold for 30 days for $2. This is a "feels bad" mechanism. You either get 6000 gold over 30 days for $2, or 4000 gold right now for $5. If you choose the $5 option, you feel bad because you're losing money AND gold. If you choose the $2 option, you feel bad because you have to wait for your gold, you have to log in every day, and you lose gold on any day you forget to or can't log in. I think (and I hope other players will chime in if I'm just a weirdo!) that it is possible to have a cheap, long-term option that doesn't feel so bad. For example, $2 for "killing a monster or closing a location awards 1-3 bonus gold" indefinitely. Objectively, this is worse than just getting 200 gold a day for 30 days, since you'd have to play a whole lot to get 200 gold (and the eventual 6000 gold) with this, as opposed to just logging in. But it feels so much better. You don't have to stress about logging in every day or feel bad if you miss a day. You feel good every time you kill a monster or close a location and that bonus gold pops up. And it doesn't spur a "feels bad" comparison to the other gold option. "4000 gold now versus 6000 gold 30 days from now" feels really bad; "4000 gold now versus more gold eventually" is a much healthier comparison: I can either get immediate gratification now or make more money in the unspecified long term. This doesn't feel nearly as bad as "lose money and gold if you're not patient!" I can't imagine who would read all this, but that's all I got! What are others' thoughts on the f2p model?

One thing I could easily see adding to the current pool is a wildcard that increases the difficulty of checks to close locations. +1 would be a pain; +2 would be brutal. As it stands, it's quite common, especially in smaller games, for a character to have to hit a 6 on a d6. Make that 6 into an 8 and things get really scary.

Here are some general bugs I've found that appear to occur independently of context. iPad Air, no pass & play and no permadeath. My apologies if any of these are already known: The text for The Poison Pill on Heroic & Legendary difficulty states that the difficulty to defeat barriers is increased by 3. However, this only applies to the Poison Trap henchmen; all other barriers are unaffected. Either the text or the implementation is incorrect. On a check with both acrobatics and perception as an option, if you reveal a Spyglass, then change back to acrobatics, then the spyglass remains floating in the "reveal" area for the rest of the scenario. The text for Black Fang's Dungeon on Heroic and Legendary difficulty states, "When you encounter a monster with the undead trait, summon and encounter an Ancient Skeleton henchman." This makes it sound as though the Ancient Skeleton is encountered before the check; however it is actually encountered after the check. I'm not sure what the intended interaction is, but either the scenario text or the implementation needs to be changed. If you bury Father Zantus to heal but then change your mind before rolling (by hitting the red X button), then Father Zantus stays buried and you do not heal any cards. The Driving Rain wildcard power states that the difficulty of all checks is increased by 1. However, this definitely does not affect checks to close locations or recharge cards, and I believe it doesn't affect any "before you act" checks (e.g., "succeed at a fortitude 8 check or take 1d4 - 1 damage"). I suspect that these are not intended to be affected, since none of the other wildcards affect such checks. If that's true, then the text of the wildcard should be changed to be something like "The difficulty of all checks to defeat banes and to acquire boons is increased by 1."

Woof! After hitting a showstopper in story mode, I figured I'd try quest mode. Then I hit a showstopper there. Clearly, the game hates me. This was all on iPad Air with pass & play and permadeath off. Sit down, children, and ye shall hear two heartwrenching tales of the end of Papa Boris ... Story Mode I beat Burnt Offerings and bought Skinsaw Murders. Playing 2.1, Kyra and Merisiel had closed 3 of the 4 locations and were wrapping up in Habe's Sanitorium. Kyra encountered a Standard Bearer (on possibly an extra exploration ... I can't remember ... clearly, I'm bad at QA ) and rolled a 6 to acquire the card. However, after the card went into her hand, there was no way to proceed with the turn. Buttons could be pushed, menus accessed, cards looked at, etc, but there was no way to end the turn (or to play cards for extra explores). Quitting the game or killing the app and reloading takes me back to the beginning of the check, but pass or fail, the game is frozen at that point. Thus ends the journey of Kyra and Merisiel! Quest Mode This one is a real trip through bizarro land. I beat one level on normal difficulty, hit level 2 on both Kyra and Merisiel (gaining no rewards for this -- should I have gotten something?), and began another level on normal. Merisiel started on the Junk Beach and Kyra started on the ... crap, I can't remember what it's called, but it's the one where you can recharge a card to auto-acquire allies. One of the other two locations was the Farmhouse; the other I can't remember. Things go haywire instantly on M's first turn. The screen is greyed out and she can't do anything. There's a blue "complete action" button even though there's no start-of-turn action. Pressing the button does nothing. "Give card" is available even though M and K are at different locations. I push random buttons and suddenly the "close location?" dialogue comes up. Selecting "yes" brings up the "when closing" action, which is to defeat a poison trap. I discard thieves tools and am not given the option to recharge them, but the poison trap goes away. But now there's 1 card left in the location deck and I can take actions. I hit the location deck. The last card is ... poison trap! And NOW I get the option to recharge Thieves' Tools from the previous check. I fail the recharge roll and check against the current poison trap proceeds. I succeed and roll d6 for items, per the Junk Beach's "when closing" effect. However, after rolling a 1, I get no item and the location deck goes back to being 10 cards. Blessings deck has clouded over at some point and is showing 0. I hit end turn, draw cards, and the screen stays locked on Merisiel. I can switch between M and K and look at cards and access menus, but no actions can be performed. Killing the app or quitting the game and logging back in takes me to the point where the end turn button needs to be hit, and when it is, the same problem happens. Also, when I access Quest Mode from the main menu, it takes me back to the game in progress, which of course is stuck. Thus, I can't actually play Quest Mode at all anymore! I imagine this would be very upsetting to encounter as a player when the game is live. Perhaps it would be possible to add a "break" feature of some kind, so that if the game gets stuck in an abnormal state, the player can at least cut the scenario and retain the use of his characters? As it stands, I don't mind losing M & K for quest mode, since they'd only beaten 1 scenario each, but the save file I lost in story mode had legendary difficulty unlocked all the way through AD1, which is a sad thing to lose.

Here are my thoughts on wildcards after beating all of the prologue and Burnt Offerings on legendary difficulty: I like them. I like that they are simple; I hope they don't become "frilly" and overly "clever" or specific. Harder checks, less time, more damage -- nice and straightforward. The wildcards add a dash of extra challenge without any wackiness or too much to think about. I do not think they up the difficulty of the game to Dark Souls levels, but that's because Rise of the Runelords was a relatively easy set. (Something which, by the way, I don't consider a criticism -- it was smart to make the first base set a little too easy rather than a little too hard.) I imagine that Skull and Shackles with these wildcards would get pretty intense, and Wrath of the Righteous would be downright nasty. Thus, I think it's up to the core adventure, not to the wildcards, to set the tone for the difficulty of the game. As a long-time player of the game, I'm not sure that raising the difficulty to Dark Souls levels is necessarily the right objective to shoot for. The thing is, a great player can beat Dark Souls whatever the difficulty. By contrast, if you push the difficulty too much in Pathfinder Adventures, you end up with scenarios that a player sometimes can't win, regardless of how skillfully they play. This is bad, and historically, it's what has caused the most disappointment among PACG fans. Anyone who is a longtime frequenter of the Paizo forums has probably seen certain Skull & Shackles scenario names come up over and over again -- Best Served Cold, Bizarre Love Triangle, Free Captains' Regatta. These are hated, infamous scenarios because they make players feel (rightly or not) that they cannot win unless they get a lucky draw. My worry is that if the difficulty is pushed too far in an effort to produce Dark Souls, we're going to end up with Solitaire instead. Failing over and over until you get lucky works for solitaire, but it alienates players in Pathfinder Adventures. This is why I think the wildcards and restricted movement are in a nearly perfect place right now, and I hope they don't change much.

Well, first, I owe a sincere apology to anyone who was offended by my calling the original game mechanic stupid. I certainly do not think anyone is stupid for liking what I consider a stupid mechanic, just as I don't think I'm stupid for liking Taken, which I think is an incredibly stupid movie. Smart people can like stupid things, and I'm very glad that, whatever my personal opinions on the mechanic are, it brings joy to other players. Now, here's why I think it's stupid. With respect, this comparison doesn't hold up. It makes sense that the lithe elf is more likely to succeed at an activity involving dexterity than the armored cleric. It also makes sense that elf might still fail, or sometimes even do worse than the cleric, because life is unpredictable. Drawing cards makes sense too -- when going into unknown places, you never know exactly what you're going to find. By contrast, there is no real world analogue to, "If I don't pick up this Mace, I'm never going to find a Mace again." Or its even more befuddling counterpart, "If I pick up this Mace, I might find another one later." The dice, cards, and feats in PACG are mechanics, yes, but they are organic. The box management mechanics that begin with AD3 are anything but. They are a kludge put in place to preserve balance. Now I get that when you design a game, all your mechanics can't be organic. Sometimes you just have to jury-rig a thing or two in place with glue stick and duct tape. In the case of PACG, you need to do something to fix the fact that cards from the base set coming up in later adventures would diminish the impact of the game. And it's fine to have some kludges here and there, but in general, the more your players have to make decisions around kludges rather than around organic elements, the higher the risk you run of turning players off with a "gamey" feeling. But again, I don't think anyone is stupid for liking those decisions, and I'm glad that others have found happiness in them. I'm even more glad, though, that they're going away in the digital version.

Quality of life suggestions seem like a tricky thing to suggest right now, since there are enough real bugs to deal with, but here are some things I'd eventually like to see (and am curious to know whether other players agree or I'm an outlier who ought to be ignored): 1. A roll button. Swiping the dice is fun when there's a lot of dice, but it can be irritating when there's just one die, especially if it's a bum check that I'd rather get past as soon as possible (e.g. rolling a d4 for a dumb boon with a check of 10). In that case, I'd much rather perform one action (tap) than two actions (tap + swipe) to get past the check. 2. An option to auto-roll recharge checks. Right now, each time I cast a spell, I have to do 2 pesky things afterward: tap "recharge" (as opposed to discard) and then roll the recharge die. I wish there were an option to do both of these things automatically. It would also be nice if, in the future, when we have cards that can be revealed to give a bonus to Int and Wis, these cards apply their bonuses automatically as well. 3. Moving cards out of your hand should play them. Currently, if you want to play a card, you have to either tap it and then tap the appropriate play button (recharge, discard, etc), or tap + drag it to the appropriate area (the deck, the discard pile, etc). I'd rather it be just like in Hearthstone, where dragging the card anywhere outside your hand causes it to be played, regardless of the form of the play. 4. An option to forfeit a scenario. This has been mentioned in other threads, but I've not seen anyone mention what I consider to be the most important justification for this feature: accidentally selecting the wrong scenario. It's one thing if a character dies on turn 15 and you have to grind out the remaining time; it's quite another if you accidentally hit the play button with the wrong scenario selected and have a full 30 turns of grindin' to do. Major pain point! 5. A menu option to auto-skip cutscenes/dialogue. Don't get me wrong, I love the writing in this game! However, even the world's best writing is only new once, so an option to turn these off for players who have been through the game before would be welcome. 6. An option to keep the starting location view for the entire scenario. I think it's really cool how you can see the locations in a physical space, but for gameplay purposes, I'd like to be able to see things more clearly. At the beginning of the scenario, when the locations are all shown on one screen (with the movement connections, for legendary difficulty), it's perfect! I wish there were an option to use this view for the entire scenario, so that I don't have to drag around the map so much when planning my moves during the game. 7. Increase the number of things that roll automatically. It feels so great when the game just rolls dice for me automatically, such as when encountering a monster with pre-check damage. I wish that more things that the player has no control over would roll automatically, too. For example, with the wildcard power that deals 1 fire damage if you roll a 1 on a 1d6 each time you kill a monster, you have to roll the d6 manually, but there's no reason for this. 8. Arcane/Divine spell filters. When Kyra builds a deck, she's typically not going to want to see the arcane spells. When Ezren builds a deck, he's not going to want to see the divine ones. It would be nice to have a filter here allowing the player to turn off spells that are exclusive to one category or the other.

While I am sad to lose Deekow, I think the auto-culling change is good for the game. Culling cards in the physical game is indeed quite satisfying, but I don't want to have to deal with that in the digital game. Having to stop and make a yes/no choice each time you banish a basic/elite boon would be so annoying! Even in the physical game, the culling system has its downsides. Say Merisiel encounters a crappy Mace in AD3. She's low on health and would like pad her deck with an extra card, plus she can feed it to her hero power, so the Mace isn't really dead. However, if she passes on it, then the Mace is banished forever; otherwise it won't be. So now her player is sitting there, weighing the immediate value of the extra card versus the nebulous future of value of having one fewer basic weapon in the game for the rest of the campaign. This. Is. Stupid. It's a gamey, unthematic, and thoroughly unsatisfying decision to have to spend time and mental energy on, especially for something as banal as rolling a d8 for a useless item with a check of 4. Ideally, those kinds of decisions should be automatic. See boon, pick up die, roll. I'm really glad that the digital version of the game brings us closer to the ideal natural flow of the game. That said, I would, as always, like to hear more specifics. How will players know which cards are "restricted" and which are not? Is it a simple formula, such as "restricted if and only if singleton," or can cards that exist in multiples be restricted too? What kinds of cards can the players swap in place of their restricted cards? I'd also love to know more about how the vault is generated. When building my f2p Kyra and Merisiel, I noticed that the C deck isn't included in the free version of the game -- there's no Amulet of Might Fists, there's only 1 copy of Inflict, etc. How and when do those cards get added? Is it attached to the C deck characters in some way? If so, that should be in the game, so that players can see why the 4 C deck characters cost more than others.

Whoo, my first closed beta bug submission! Following Sylvanta's bullets from the "how to help QA" thread: Is pass & play on? Is permadeath on? No and no. Tutorial, Story Mode, or Quest Mode? Characters in Party: Kyra and Merisiel Location of each character: Kyra in Treacherous Cave, Merisiel in Goblin Fortress Turn Order: Merisiel --> Kyra Scenario & Scenario Difficulty: Approach to Thistletop (1.4), Normal What card was encountered when the issue occurred? The villain Gogmurt Did the issue occur on the first explore or a subsequent explore? First, but I could be wrong Did other characters aid the check? What did they use to aid it? I don't remember, but the bug happened before this Was the encounter a Horde? Nope! After Merisiel bumped into Gogmurt, the game proceeded straight to the combat step, adding 1d4 to the check (per the scenario rules) and giving Merisiel the option to fight or evade. This means that several things that should have happened, did not: 1. The screen did not do that epic thing where it turns all black with fire roaring behind the villain card 2. Any dialogue/story that happens when the villain is first encountered didn't happen. What wacky thing did Merisiel quip? What hilarious song did the goblin sing? I will tragically never know. :'( 3. Kyra did not get a chance to close the Treacherous Cave, even though it was open and she should have had the chance. Gogmurt fled into the Nettlemaze. In a later turn, Merisiel encountered him again. The Treacherous Cave was still open and Kyra was still sitting there, and the same bug occurred.

With respect, Alklein, I don't think any of us are missing the point of this thread. Your argument in the initial post is such a simple one that a person would need to have a severe intellectual disability in order to miss the point of it, and I hope you don't think any of us are thusly disabled. Evidence: The change to Holy Candle was not necessary for digital development. Conclusion: Holy Candle shouldn't have been changed. See? I got the point of your thread. I just happen to disagree with it. When asked in this AMA for his least favorite card, Mike Selinker replied, "I would not be upset to see all copies of Holy Candle consumed in flames." Immediately after that he said, "In some sense, we are getting to do just that with Runelords, because it's being rebuilt by Obsidian for their fantastic new PACG digital version." Respectfully, I think the wishes of the guy who invented the game trump anyone else's on this matter. Furthermore, I (and others) conceded that, even so, the card's name should have been changed. It's worth noting, too, that changing Holy Candle to its current form as opposed to banishing it outright is already a concession to players. Since Holy Candle is in the base set, you can add it to your deck in AD3 whenever you have an item deficit, and even after you banish it, you can simply add it back after the scenario as long as you preserve that deficit. Yes, you won't reliably be able to keep it in your deck all of the time, but since the power level of most items is low, refraining for rolling for new items won't be a major sacrifice a great deal of the time.

I would like to make a motion to retain the current wording "Hero of Sandpoints" indefinitely.

I'm with Deekow on this one. I sympathize with those who are frustrated by the change and want their old Holy Candles back, and I concede that perhaps the name of the card should have been changed as a courtesy, but man, there is just no way that I could ever justify that card's existence in any version of the game, least of all in the base set. Holy Candle could have come out in AD6 and everybody still would have lost their minds. Frankly, I'm surprised more cards didn't get the Holy Candle treatment. I personally think that Augury is one of the most broken cards ever printed, and the fact that there are 3 copies of it in the base set is unbridled lunacy. Now of course, I don't mind having Augury in my games, just I like I never minded having Holy Candle. I'm just sayin', if Obsidian had whacked it with a nerf bat I could scarcely have begrudged them.

Okay, at the risk of sounding like an Obsidian shill here, that honestly seems very generous to me! I figured if playing through an entire adventure on all three difficulty modes would generate enough gold to unlock the next one, that'd be fair. The f2p players of the world should count their blessings that Obsidian has a way more charitable sense of "fair" than I do. If the pattern of progression from Perils --> AD1 holds for AD1 --> AD2 and all future adventures, then any player who does beat each adventure on all three difficulties will not only have enough gold to buy the next adventure, but will also bank some gold for buying new characters, all for free. I'll be buying the season pass because I desperately want Obsidian to have all my money, but if I were trying to go about this f2p style, I think I'd be pretty happy with it.

What are the current prices of the scenarios and characters, and how much do you get for beating a scenario on normal / heroic / legendary? Does the reward change depending on the scenario, how many times you've beaten it, or how many characters are in the conquering party?