Erasculio

Pillars of Eternity Things I really liked: • The writing. It's nice to see a game that doesn't assume players are afraid of reading. I really loved the descriptions that came with dialogues - it's the kind of thing other games try to show through very expensive graphics and motion capture, but they never nail it. • It's not D&D. No tacos, woot! I like table-top RPGs, but I have never enjoyed D&D (Nobilis ftw). It's nice to see a fantasy RPG using the Infinite Engine not afraid of leaving the D&D roots behind. • Combat speed. In other IE games, combat always felt clumsy to me — I'm fonder of turn-based systems. But all the options we are given in PoE, all the triggers for auto-pause AND slow mode, make it a huge improvement over other IE games. • Improvements to the magic system. It's great to see that we don't have to memorize a specific spell per rest in order to use it. Being able to use entire levels of spells instead of a pre-defined spell a pre-defined number of times per rest makes playing as casters a lot more fun than in many classic IE games. Ciphers are a lot of fun, too - not having to worry about casts per rest makes them my favourite casters in the game. • The inventory system doesn't get in the way of gameplay. It would have been easy to add item management options that would have been huge nuisances, like durability. PoE goes in the opposite direction, though, by allowing us to have direct access to the stash everywhere, and thus effectively have infinite inventory space. Things I think could be improved a bit: • A respec option would be nice. Players are asked to make one of the main decisions about the main character - attribute levels - before the game begins, while they don't really understand the mechanics of PoE. Nothing in character creation tells us that we won't get more attribute points when levelling up, for example. Between this, patches changing skills and talents, plus the questionable builds companions come with, I think having the option to respec would be a good thing. • The attribute system needs some fine tunning. I'm happy the game isn't using D&D rules, but, like any new system, it could use some improvements. Might is too valuable and IMO shouldn't be used as the defining attribute for all kinds of damage. Resolve is kinda useless for a backline character if you have good tanks, and even Constitution isn't relevant for those characters. It becomes hard to make a character who is interesting for dialogues and for combat. • Wizards are gimped way too much. They are still being held back by leftovers from D&D. Unlike Druids and Priests, Wizards have to learn each spell individually and they are limited by grimmoires; unlike ciphers, their relevant abilities are limited per rest. Wizards have all the limits, with few of the advantages. Weaker spells but useable per encounter instead of per rest would be better, IMO. • Crafting could use some help. I don't like using consumables, so I haven't tried crafting scrolls, potions or food. But the equipment crafting is lacking. There are many useful mods we cannot craft; it's better to find a weapon with zero quality but a draining mod (which we can't craft) than to find a weapon with almost top quality, since that we can craft ourselves. I wish we could craft any mod in the game, with reliable ways to get more materials. • The inventory is kind of a mess. A way to sort items would be great. As would be changing the background of items so we know at a glance what is their rarity. Right now, items with any mods have different backgrounds than items without any of them, but later in the game that isn't really enough. • Voice acting loses sync with text. When reading a dialogue box that goes "spoken dialogue — description — spoken dialogue", there is no pause for us to read the description between the two bits of spoken dialogue. This makes reading at the same time we're listening a bit clumsy. Maybe breaking those sections in two dialogue boxes, or adding a pause? Pillars of Eternity is a very good game, and I'm happy for being able to play it. I wish Obsidian a lot of success, both with PoE and with their future games.

We don't have many ways to change the damage of spells, wounds, powers, and so on. With attribute selection being at character creation only, and then only Might items changing the relevant stat, it feels like the abilities will do the same amount of damage from beggining to the end of the game. This could make many abilities useless later on. Do weapons change the damage of any kind of special ability? So a more powerful weapon would make spells, powers, and etc to do more damage?

I see, thanks. So I'lluse a blunderbuss as a ranged weapon... ...But I was looking for a set of melee weapons to have as a melee option, too. Any suggestions about which melee weapons would be good? Dual wielding two fast, weak weapons? Dual wielding two average speed weapons? Wielding a strong but slow two handed weapon?

My character has relatively low Might (12), and I have been trying to figure out which weapon to use. It's a cipher with Draining Whip, so my original impression was to go with fast weapons (so I hit more often, and thus get the Draining Whip bonus more often), and aim for accurate weapons (so I would hit and build Focus, instead of missing and being useless). So, dual wielding rapiers, which are fast and accurate weapons... But it didn't really work. Their attacks do next to no damage. Does the damage of Focus powers depend on the strength of the weapon I'm using? If so, using weak and fast weapons would lead to using powers more often, but at the same time they would be less damaging powers, which isn't always a plus... I'm also in doubt about which ranged weapon to use as a secondary set. I'm thinking about avoiding the extremelly slow ones (so no or firearms), so I have been rellying on bows for ranged. But would rods/wands/scepters be better? Suggestions?

Hello, I would like some help in choosing a class for my main character in Path of Exile. I usually enjoy playing as spell casters, using spells for AoE damage and support. The thing is, I really don't like the spell system in D&D, in which we pick a few times to use a spell per rest and that's it. This lack of flexibility is the main reason why I couldn't bring myself to play Baldur's Gate 2, despite how Planescape: Torment is one of my favourite games (since it has relatively few fights, so the magic system didn't bother me THAT much). From what I have heard, the wizard magic system in Pillars of Eternity is a bit less rigid - we have a number of spell casts per level, as opposed to being able to use only specific spells that have been previously readied. But I'm not sure I'm going to enjoy that new wizard system either. Is there any other class with a playstyle similar to what I enjoy? As in, a magic user with area of effect damage and support? Or should I just try the wizard anyway?