Voss

Unfortunately the game isn't particularly convincing about this, and the resolution of the whole thing is... lacking. Apparently having someone repeat a stupid argument to you in person in addition to soul memory lets you get over going mad.

Nonsense. Engagement fails to be tactical because the game fails to be tactical, mostly because the AI is complete garbage and enemies lack meaningful abilities, both of which are absolute failures on the part of the programmers. Almost every encounter is solved by 1) place nigh un-hittable character in choke point 2) 5 ranged characters systematically murder everything that piles up behind said character. If the exception occurs (spirits), be ready to target fire with abilities. But spamming paralyze abilities trivializes this too. Learning and adapting to this took a couple hours. It was obvious to me from second hand beta reports what the flaws, problems and exploits in this system were, and a bit of experimentation bore all the complaints out. Both the combat (and, sadly the story) are completely one dimensional and easy to just stomp all over without effort, because the game isn't capable of putting up anything resembling a tactical challenge.

Yes it does. It is a near perfect build for a paladin tank, random int point aside. Paladins are pretty ineffective at damage and killing blows in general, so trying to build them for that is pointless.

Because the stronghold is an incoherent mess of useless crap, which isn't tied into the game in any meaningful way.

It is easier to have the druid in the party, because he has several stops to make, but the paladin is just a one off conversation. But you can do their tasks, leave, replace them with useful people and come back.

You need to go bother the gods first.

@Webshaman- eh... whatnow? Good and evil are social constructs, not physical forces. And certainly aren't related to gods. Sure. But none of that is why you're chasing him. Most of it, as you say, doesn't even come out to the very end. You're chasing him because your character somehow links Maerwald insane theories (which you don't even have to believe) that you'll inevitably go insane with the possibility that you won't go insane if you talk to this guy. Ultimately you're just forced to murder this guy (for something that is completely unrelated to the crimes he has committed) to get an answer that is completely obvious. And about 10 minutes after being told (by the wood twins) that Awakening is irreversible. Despite watching Aloth (immediately after that speech) frown and concentrate hard, and suppress his Awakening. Its all pretty baffling. But yeah, the Hollowborn thing would be an interesting motivation... if you learned about it at the end of the prologue. Learning about it at the end of chapter 2 and being forced to chase the guy regardless is... pretty uninspiring.

Agreed about Durance, he's a racist, bigoted, mass-murderer and torturer. He brags about it. About torturing people until their souls shatter, about rounding up people for the Purges, and will tell you to your face that your entire race (orlan) is worthless and deserves to be slaves. There isn't any nuance to him at all. He is 100% a monster.

I think the problem is more that the player doesn't have any reason to have any emotional investment in those meanings. Oh, dear, video game gods are fake. The horrors. On the other hand, even in within the setting, the gods are presented as fairly awful, just vehicles/excuses for bigotry, torture and genocide. Finding out they are false should be a relief, and people can get on with their own lives, building better lives through science. Like the supposed insomnia you're character has because of 'watcher issues,' the story just isn't convincing in any regard about any conceivable meaning. Mostly you just hunt down and murder a man because he mildly inconvenienced you at the beginning of the game. Luckily, he was a jerk, so... it was ok to stab him in the face at the end. And rip out his soul. As for NPC closure- the characters I actually cared about (the well written ones- Eder, Sagani, Kana) turned out fine and did well.

I opened a door and the people on the other side were hostile. So I killed them and kept walking, and there was a lion at the end and not a bear, so I killed that. If there was a meaningful choice somewhere along the line after butchering a bunch of people that the folks out front didn't care about, I missed it. I simply told the people who finally wanted to talk (after killing a couple dozen of their friends) that protecting the lion was against nature or some rot, and they left. So, yes. Poorly written and delivered... just a bunch of meaningless combat and an outcome that has no effect or meaning. Just XP. @RevBlue- disagree on the defiance bay factions. They all seemed like petty criminals trying to get their own mobs more power. Pick one at random. Doesn't matter. And, ultimately, derailed by railroad plot anyway, so... yeah. That was a waste of time.

Sure. But the problem is, Thaos was going to hand over the collected souls to Woedica and then... stop the hollowborn epidemic. It was, essentially, a one time thing for his own purposes and you come in at the end of it when the project is already over. So regardless of how tragic it is, it is done. Loads of the kids are already dead, and most of the rest are running around feral with animal souls in and eating people. You probably killed a couple dozen of the kids yourself along the way. As far as the whole thing goes, the prologue NPC's sister will almost certainly have a Hollowborn baby (since she's close enough and near enough to term) to the start of game event, but Dyrford and the epilogue exposition make it pretty clear that they'd given up on having kids already, so the Cliaban Rilag reactivation (which you can't stop because... railroad plot) doesn't matter much anyway. The tower at Heritage Hill did something different.... not even sure what the point of that was, other than probably another badly conceived plan to discredit animancy (which probably worked because Dyrwoodans are stupid and gullible). I agree with some of this, especially the one note idea. But... honestly the 'moral' choices in PoE all seem fairly straightforward (if, ultimately, rather meaningless since everything effectively resolves itself and nothing changes). Mostly I felt irritated by the railroad plot and increasingly smaller area to explore with each chapter. As for the Temple of Skaen, I disagree entirely. Maybe it was the entrance I used, but it was a inexplicably gigantic dungeon filled with red mobs (that out-populated the nearby town by an order of magnitude). I just killed everything (because there was zero choice for anyone except the high priest, and he was a jerk) and sent the girl on her way. It was pretty cut and dry, really. Hostile enemies and a transparently obvious villain chewing the scenery with no apparent reason (or motivation). So, kill him, kill the local contact guy (unsurprisingly, no one cares, and the world doesn't react one iota), and kill the incestuous lord because the game seems to think I should be vaguely outraged by what the Evil Priest claimed was going on. Which may or may not have been honest. So it didn't evoke much emotion in me at all, other than a minor irritation at not having a <sell junk> button because there was a lot of useless crap for loot. I think the biggest problem of the grey world was that Dyrwood is apparently the worst place in it, filled with irredeemably stupid, wretched and worthless people who aren't worthy of sympathy or interest.* Everywhere outside of the Dyrwood sounded really fascinating with interesting cultures, scholarship and history. Inside, they just kill anything different for the sake of being Rebels without a Clue, and then burn down places of history, culture and learning. Sometimes without even looting it first. *plus, they're also really boring, which is probably the worst crime imaginable after being inefficient (which is also true).

Oh, is that who was sending assassins after me in Defiance Bay? I was wondering. Nope. The assassins show up regardless of who loves you. Or if all of them love you.

Durance is as evil as realistic people come with wanting to purge those he does not like with fire and has no problems with wanting to murder all Eothas followers on sight. They only don't seem that evil because the game does not put in situations where they do more than talk about that stuff. They needed to do more and put in situations where "evil" characters want to do something that is considered cruel or sadistic in the game and you must help them or reject them. But game designers decided that your companions will not be attacking or leaving you just like that, so... I agree that more situations with harsh morality choices and maybe some unexpected displays of ego or lack of empathy would be welcome. I think Sagani is the most one dimensional character, but she's just such a doll, that I can't really be angry about it. Most of the characters certainly got the potential for evil in them as well as good. Which makes them more "human". EDIT: Kana is pretty one dimensional as well. Disagree with this entirely. Sagani and Kana (and Eder) have real motivations, reflect their cultures, and have ties to other people (granted you don't meet them). They are the kinds of people you can actually meet, where questions of good/evil are rightly irrelevant, as opposed to sad little puzzle characters like Durance and GM, which you won't meet outside a game, and don't serve any purpose beyond unlocking the conversation path the 'right' way for the sake of completing the companion quest.

Just pull the kobolds to the doorways and kill them. Its only a couple packs to the stairs.

Well, they didn't. I accidentally (I was farming gold-plates) ended up killing everyone on the street in Brackenbury, and earned myself villain status in Defiance Bay. So far no one has cared. Slaughter a half-dozen animancers on the doorstep of the asylum and go inside: same as it ever was.

I didn't think the railroad plot needed any more sign posts.

But better than actually keeping the companion around. So... win-win. Given how crap the companions are, sacrificing a tavern-generated companion would actually be a real sacrifice in comparison.

Right, but the point is the game elements provided to you are: kobolds are for killing. The end. And, of course, as it turns out, you aren't helping anyone, which only says something about the writer. (Notably that there is no option for: 'yes, the drink won't spontaneously give your child a soul, but you have a better chance of surviving childbirth if you're healthy', rather than just calling shenanigans of lying to the woman).

Agreed. An actual filter would be useful. And sold items should go to the bottom of the list, which would fix some of the navigation issues. The stash could use some work as well, mind, sorting by type and enchanted/not.

Why is the setting relevant in this regard? The moral choices you make, would hopefully make you think, whether you're deciding whether kill a guy names Xanzitorp, who happens to be a wizard, or some guy names Joe, who drives a taxi? Are you unfamiliar with the genre? You kill people (lots, and lots of people) to take their stuff and gain power. The moral dimension is pretty much not present at all, and you specifically don't turn fantasy game 'morality' on random taxi drivers named Joe. That gets you arrested for murder. If you were to take the main 'moral lessons' of this game to heart, it would be that feral (badly behaved) children (soulless children with animal souls) should be killed out of hand rather than taught to behave, and religious people should be murdered on sight, because they (exemplified in Waedwen, Durance and Thaos) cause nothing but suffering. So really, I'd caution Fearghus and the developers of this game to avoid morality discussions at all, and treat the game for what it is: casual entertainment.

Weirdly incoherent, since soulless children have nothing at all to do with hate speech, nor are they something adults sit around and chat about as if it is a concept that matters. This game actually really fails at talking about anything that matters, because the story is centered on pure fantasy concepts that don't relate to the real world. So if exploring 'things that matter' was actually a goal, the game fails utterly. On the other hand, if its about providing ~40 hours of amusing (but empty) fantasy violence, then it is pretty successful.

Funny you should bring up the paladin in argument against pre-buffing, since Faith and Conviction is an auto-cast buff rather than an inherent bonus. But no, your argument isn't logical. That you're better able to do things when you're under pressure and/or in pain rather than when you're calm and relaxed is inherently nonsense. As for gods responding to prayers... they don't seem to have issues with their priests calming them whores, so I doubt very much they have issues with the priest not being in danger. Nor do they have issue with someone starting combat by asking the deity to set people on fire.

The consensus of this thread seemed to be that money is not abundant in PoE: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/76080-coppers-plentiful-or-scarce/ There are seriously 4 posts in that thread, and 2 of the three responses don't even vaguely say that, going more for the opposite. personally, even wasting tons of cash on the useless stronghold, I had piles of money, and nothing worth spending it on. Given the genre this isn't a shock, or something I particularly care about.

I don't use them now. They're useless. Combat is over far before they get 3 dings to summon crappy things. @Eos- ciphers trivialize all enemies, not just the trash.

Fa real I can't even think of a reason why it is that way. Can't be technical, since necklaces don't even show up on the character. Which is a point in favor of necklaces, since cloaks are pretty poorly done. Reminds me heavily of Temple of Elemental Evil and the graphics animation capability of 12 years ago.