Voss

I'll agree to it when someone stops everyone everywhere from referring to character creation in any game as 'rolling' (even when no rolling is involved) and character avatars as 'toons'.

Wait, that isn't an argument that the communities are pro-romance. That is just an argument that if you stick a big red button in front of anyone, they're going to push it. It might even be an argument for Skinner box style quest rewards, that the players expect xp or a fancy item out of the virtual sexing.

The manual is long outdated and nonsense. Don't go by what is in it. And the errata needs errata as well.

It depends a lot on playstyle. The burst then recharge focus through normal combat is going to frustrate some players of the cipher, while wizard will do largely what people expect (once they work out what spells are useful and which are garbage). The single target bias of the cipher is also going to appeal or frustrate.

Yes. There are a couple official posts on the subject. 09:00 PDT (pacific daylight time). So 17 hours and 9 minutes from right now.

I'm guessing it will be useless, uninformative and accompanied by lots of sniveling.

Sure. But they actually have to develop a relationship. And this is where the whole thing usually falls apart. Take DA:I. It takes a great deal of pain developing the idea that your relationship with these various crazy people is as the second coming of their personal savior, their boss, leader and the key to saving the world. But on the side you can repeatedly sexually harass them until they give in and have sex. And this is the pinnacle of CRPG romance. Or take BG2. You can either get a whining crying teenage ex-slave pregnant, or randomly marry a horrible woman seeking to replace her recently mutilated dead husband after a matter of days. Or be 'edgy' with the S&M dark elf stereotype. Yeah. Pass.

Well yes. Given the recovery timers, against that DR4 enemy, two weapon is entirely viable (but two handed certainly isn't bad either). Against that DR12 enemy? Pretty poor, unless you pull out stilettos, maces and/or vulnerable attack. (though notably a twohander with an estoc and vulnerable attack brings it down in 2 hits) Honestly, I view 2 weapon and 2 handed to be equally viable in general, as long as you have awareness of DR and ways to bypass it. Specific situations favor one or the other, but it isn't really necessary in most cases to swap between them.

Don't? Seriously, if you have to...Might for damage, Int for increased durations, perhaps Dex for increased attack speed. Swap dex and int if you avoid class abilities with durations.

The math is correct. The conclusion isn't. Average damage for a fast weapon:13.5 *1.33= 18 Average damage for a two handed weapon: 23.5 *1.33= 31 Against a DR4 enemy, 14 per hit vs 27 per hit. Against a DR 12 enemy, 6 per hit vs 19 per hit. Assume an enemy with 50 endurance. DR4: 4 hits, vs 2 hits DR12: 9 hits vs 3 hits. Might is worse on low damage hits against higher DR.

Given the disposition dialogue options and attribute-dialogue not being the end-all be all of options... I'm going to ignore it and build an effective character. I've no desire to play a meatshield. Also, int is a 'dialogue' stat, and very useful for a lot of combat builds, so I doubt I'll feel lacking. Also, if I find I really want to see attribute dialogue options, I could always enchant several pieces of gear with +per/res and call it my 'talking to people' clothes. Just change outfits when hitting town.

It is mighty useful with high dmg weapons - it gives a +% so it scales with damage nicely (+30% out of 50 is much better than +30% out of 10). Also useful for all your damaging cipher skills. Might is king for damage classes Actually, its the other way around. Examples with made-up numbers: 55 base DMG vs 10 DR = 45 DMG 55*1.33 DMG vs 10 DR = 63 DMG = 40% DMG increase. 15 base DMG vs 10 DR = 5 DMG 15*1.33 DMG vs 10 DR = 10 DMG = 100% DMG increase. The lower your per-hit damage, and the higher your enemies DR, the more might becomes disproportionately powerful. No. It gives a greater percentage increase. It doesn't give you more actual damage. +18 dmg per swing matters a lot more than +5. Per the made up numbers, case 1 takes 5 swings to kill an enemy with 200 endurance. case 1a takes 4 swings case 2 takes 40 swings to kill the same enemy, case 2a still takes 20 swings to kill that guy. Percentage wise? Fantastic. Actually being in combat with the enemy swinging back? case 2a is still really miserable. For a cipher too, more damage=more focus back.

I'm glad Chris can do exactly what Chris wants, or maybe he just knows him limitations and chooses not to push them. Most of us have to actually do what we are paid to do. Either way with the money they made in KS I think they could have hired someone to do romances. Having more than one writer for a game is not at all uncommon, particularly when there are several different NPC's to be writing for. I just don't accept the "What Chris Wants" as an excuse for romance not being in the game. I don't think it really is why. I think the obsidian team as a whole didn't think they could do it well and that it wouldn't be worthwhile to do it. And going by everything they have done, and every cRPG that has had 'romance,' I think that it is a perfectly reasonable position to take.

Ah. Well, not much you can do with that, unfortunately. Stiletto, Hatchet and pike are all in different groups, so the only thing I could really recommending is not to take a weapon focus talent at all. Which means focusing on powers and grabbing Greater Focus early. The mechanical problem with that is you're going to have to live with missing or grazing a fair bit, and thus getting back less focus, which makes you less effective in longer fights. I'm not particularly sold on that, though. Other caster classes can get by without worrying about hitting with weapons, but for a cipher, it is really a kick in the pants, because it directly affects your ability to continue to cast in each fight.

It should be 9AM PDT. We are having Paradox check on this. Steam has been tweaked now (as of 4pm eastern time), giving a result of 20 hours, or noon, which is 9 pdt.

Estoc, yes and vulnerable attack to boot. Rogues can stack a ridiculous number of damage multipliers on a single attack,

It could, actually. But whether it was pushed on the steam end or publisher end, most release times have usually defaulted somewhere between 7am and 10am their time, 10 being most often the case in my experience.

1) it should 2) Int should keep them around longer (though end of combat usually happens first). Statwise, I haven't seen anything that indicates this.

Never said you did. But I see no reason to play stupidly 'just because,' which is the only translation I can make of your posts. There is no cost to scouting (and unlike IE games, you can sneak and check for traps simultaneously), ergo there is no reason not to. On the other hand, there *Is* a cost to pointlessly setting off traps and wandering into fights unprepared. I'm not sure why you keep arguing this at all. Logically, there is no reason not to scout. Roleplaying wise (assuming your characters want to survive) there is no reason not to scout. I can see no reason to not scout outside of towns. None. It is the most obvious default behavior, 100% of the time, with absolutely no downside.

Dex is complicated. Bizarrely complicated, because most actions have an attached recovery timer as well (and a lot of ranged weapons have another reload timer as well), and speed is done by animation frames, not actual seconds. So the 3% isn't a flat 3%. Per/Res- if you throw yourself in front of attacks, the deflection bonus matters. Otherwise, not so much, and the interrupt mechanics are wonky. Con- yes. Might- yes Dialogue- yes, but and conditional. You also have disposition choices (which have a more lasting impact), and word of dev is the attribute dialogue choices aren't necessarily better (or even positive), and sometimes just paying attention benefits you more. Druid- Might and Int. Might benefits you regardless of shapeshift melee or spells (or damage/healing). Druids have a lot of AoE (which benefits from Int) and some CC, summons or debuffs (which also benefit from int). Dex might help you some, but...really, most of what you are doing will involve blowing people the hell up or making their day miserable for as long as possible.

Ah. The disconnect. Yeah, I don't even see these stats that way. When assigning attributes in PoE, I'm incrementing a spreadsheet for modifiers that have no effect on the world, just tweaking outputs for a character. There is no rationale in the world that allows for pulling a trigger extra hard, or making a sword swing in a physically larger arc just by thinking at it. The design is entirely gamist, with no worldbuilding attached to the mechanics. At least, not the attributes. They could be called Blue, Tuesday, April, Cats, Ponies and Friendship and still be just as meaningful as they are now. Though personally, I'd call them Damage, Useless, Speed, Deflection1, Control and Deflection2, at least then they'd be related to what they do.

I have no idea what you're talking about. There is zero reason to wander around an unfamiliar wilderness or dungeon area without scouting, both for monsters and traps. None. Why would I want to be surprised by a trap? I want to find them before they go off. I don't need to stroke the game's ego by letting it 'get me' with a trap- that is only a negative. The game isn't a small child that needs positive reinforcement with minor psychological victories. I also have no idea where your 'guess' comes from. There will be traps. There will be monsters. Scout mode gives you an advantage over both. To defeat traps and ambush monsters, you must have points in stealth and points in mechanics.

Ah, yes. The armor set of walking around town, talking to people. Good idea. This is quite seriously something you can do, just get (or enchant) an outfit with various res/int/per buffs.

But that is not the same as being able to use companions to perform skill checks. Is this possible, or not? No. But also consider, word from the devs is that stat-derived dialogue options aren't necessarily good, just different. Disposition based choices have more long term effect. @Fierhorn- that was a goal, but personally, I think it is one they failed miserably at. It is in fact quite easy to make an 'OMG awful build,' and depending on what you want to make, most stats are actually throw away. Also, as far as leveling up goes, by far the vast majority of talents are trap choices. And irrevocable decisions. The system mastery learning curve is high, and pretty mandatory, imo.

Yeah, the other side of this is that CON is a % increase. So it gives a lot more to monks and barbarians, and jack/squat to wizards and priests.