bobthe

Maybe something to consider is how realistic it is to have to find every secret ever in the game world. I understand your desire to "collect them all", I have a similar desire, but is THAT really realistic in-game? Does that not break immersion just as much as the run/stealth/fast-mode thing? I think at some point you have to step back and say "ok, if I really want to find EVERY secret, that means that in-game my characters will in fact have to spend time searching every step they take...does that break my immersion too much?" Ultimately it's YOUR decision to try and find every secret so it's YOU breaking immersion in this case, not the game.

Well it would break immersion for ME if the enemies behaved stupidly and did not take advantage of targetting your weakest party members. It's not that they hate Aloth. They are targetting your weakest characters. And some of it is probably more generic "attack the back lines" scripting. The point is, it would be LESS realistic if they did not do this, contrary to your position. Yes, the shadows and shades are annoying as hell. Try making a new formation and encircling Aloth. At least then anything that teleports close will be in range of other party members as well. Maybe even give Aloth better armor for the areas with teleporting critters. YOU not changing your strategy to account for enemies with different tactics and capabilities is the problem here...not the critters'.

Actual tank won't be getting like 10 focus per second to spam spells when attacked. Also body attunement works on cipher and stacks with pain block. So you can get +17 dr if another cipher buffs you or 7 yourself. Still a lot. And yes, this is not the most tanky build, however the amount of pain it dishes out in return makes up for it. You don't need to be super tanky if you melt stuff in seconds, just tanky enough. Have you ever really needed to actually regain any focus during a battle though? You're not trying to solo since you reference other party members. I'm near the end of the game on hard and I've only maybe once ever needed to cast a spell with my cipher after the initial focus was used up. I probably didn't even need to cast that one either. Focus is unnecessary unless you're trying to solo or maybe on PotD.

I've noticed multiple points in the story where the decision that the game thinks is the "morally good" decision is not the one I think is the "morally good" decision (or vice-versa). I've had to reload and redo a few conversations because my intent was to be the good guy but I had to take what I considered to be "bad-guy" conversation paths to get what the game considered "good-guy" status. There were also a number of times when a conversation suddenly put me in a position where my only conversation option was one that I did not agree with and did not think went with my character. Overall the game is good, but there are definitely some poorly thought out parts.

Isn't this supposed to be the no-spoiler forum? Since I'm not spoiling anything that hasn't already been spoiled here... I was very unimpressed with Pallegina. +6 Accuracy may be her best aura but that still sucks compared to every other character, and that's really all she brings to the table. She's a much worse tank than Eder. Much worse DPS than other classes (like my barbarian). I just didn't find her useful at all. I dropped her for the ranger but she also disappointed me DPS-wise so I dropped HER for the druid. Durance is great, although I found him mostly useless early on. He just needs a few levels to get good. Even on hard fights don't last long enough to bother using a chanter.

Seems just as tedious to have to activate the same set of buffs at the beginning of every fight. Actually, I would argue that it's even MORE tedious to do this at the beginning of a fight because you have to pause/unpause a lot and micro your character positions as enemies advance and move about. I suspect the reason has more to do with "per encounter" abilities. If you use a per-encounter ability to buff before combat, and then combat doesn't start, does it expend a use? Does it refresh after "x" period with no combat starting? Only after the next combat, however long after you use the ability that is? I'm not saying this couldn't have been figured out, just that it's likely a reason for not allowing a lot of buffing outside combat. The confusing part is that some buff spells CAN be used outside combat.

A few comments. One, just because the char gen system asks you to make some decisions about your character background doesn't mean that has to fully define your character. Maybe you came from a pirate background but the horrors seen during the plot that unfolds in-game makes you a better person. Or maybe it makes you a worse person. Background is just that: background, subject to change and grow just as real people do. So pick something you like for a background and don't worry too much about it restricting your character's personality. If you're defining your character's entire personality based on the two very high-level things in char gen that relate to it then you are not roleplaying at all, you're just reading the words on your character and assuming that's all there is to him or her. Regarding your comment about a perfect character...if a char gen system lets you make a perfect character it's probably broken. Each build will have different strengths and weaknesses. I'm not sure what you mean by "You can either have character that's actually worth half a damn gameplay-wise OR a character that's interesting and seems to come to life on its own, not both." You have even stated that you've barely made it into the game so what makes you think you can judge this already? They actually do a pretty good job of making all the attributes affect NPC reactions and dialogue in various situations. Plus there's an entirely in-game reputation system (i.e. not defined at all during char gen) that also affects NPC reactions and dialogue options. I think this is an unwarranted concern on your part. Regarding: "I feel like I threw forty denars down the drain. I quite simply cannot cope with this. To find any enjoyment, I'd have to spend tens of hours studying the game, spoiling the plot completely and crafting a perfect character that has a fully pre-built lifespan from the beginning to the end." - I'm not even sure where to begin. What makes you feel like this would be necessary?

The funny thing is, for all the posts about "slicken is overpowered", I actually never even had it in my spellbook for most of the game and I never had a problem. Whether or not it's better than other spells is irrelavent because there are enough other spells that are still very useful. Slicken is not a problem. In fact, I often find myself mixing up which spells I use just for variety and there are a lot of spells that are useful.

I'd also like to see details on damage when you hit multiple enemies. Currently there is no tooltip with the damage breakdown when it aggregates AoE effects that hit 3+ enemies.

I've also seen some problems with the damage calculation. This is in the latest, 1.03. I'm having trouble linking an image for some reason but the combat log entry for my Barbarian's attack looks like: "Acc:61 - Fort:47 = 14. Roll:62 + 14 = 76 (Hit). 33.1 - (DR:0.0 - 5.0) = 0.0 Pierce. -5 All Defenses for 6.3 sec" The weapon has DR Reduction 5, hence the DR 0 - 5 part. I'm wondering if a negative effective DR is causing a problem with the damage calculation.

Regarding your second point, it requires new animations for every player-controllable model, which is non-trivial. I'm not an animator so maybe there are templates that can be used, I'm not sure, but new animations seems like a non-trivial effort.

That's an interesting question. I suspect that the XP is not split with those in the inn, but the game is instead setting NPCs levels to be your level or your level minus one when you first make them a companion. This means that you can actually increase your total party XP by delaying adding scripted NPCs to your party. I'm also curious about how XP is split between party members. Is it split evenly or does everyone get the full value? I suppose this would be easy to check, I just don't have the game in front of me right now.

It is completely within your ability to simply not "abuse" kiting. I put abuse in quotes because not everyone considers it abuse. If it's an intended mechanic then it is definitively not abuse. Regardless, you can simply not kite things and play how you like. It's not multiplayer so why do you care if other people do?

I was able to get around this bug by exiting sneak mode. For me, the crashes only occurred when trying to transition from inside the castle to any outside area while in sneak mode. I didn't notice for a while because I'm always in sneak mode when there might be danger nearby, but once I exited sneak mode I was able to leave without crashing.

This absolutely, without question, should not need to be the case. I understand that it's reality much of the time but that does not excuse the situation.

Except that Might is also used for physical intimidation. So it is clearly both "physical might" and "soul might" or whatever you want to call it. I would buy into this mechanic more if they didn't use Might for physical intimidation events.

For me, the game was crashing every time I tried to leave Raedric's Keep. I assume this is what you're seeing? Basically any transition from inside to outside triggered the crash, even if the outside area was part of the keep interior (e.g. courtyard). Eventually I noticed that it stopped crashing if I took myself out of sneak mode when transitioning areas. I always move in sneak mode inside (and usually outside too) so I just tried by chance and it seemed to work consistently for me to avoid the crashes. I crashed dozens of times trying to leave the keep, even reloading older saves that were still inside the keep to see if it still crashed before killing everyone. I never noticed a single crash while trying to leave when not in sneak mode though and I redid the entire keep after figuring this out just to make sure.

I have a similar problem. Most of the priest spells seem fairly useless. The heals are obviously useful. There's a couple handy buffs and one handy debuff and then a bunch of what appears to be mostly useless. Maybe I'm not evaluating the other spells usefulness well? Or misinterpretting how they work? One good example is the large area protection spell that is listed as "Hazard AOE". I have NO idea what that means so I have avoided using that spell.

Why would they do that? We can't all agree that CRPG's like this should allow a toggle between running and walking? Fallout 1 and 2 did it and nobody complained. It just seems like an overlooked feature or something. Hopefully the upcoming patch adds it. No, you will never get everyone to agree that this should be an option. It's just a difference in preference. That doesn't mean I would complain if it was added though...I think it's perfectly reasonable as far as features go, I just personally do not consider it necessary as I prefer to always be in "run" mode. I also think the half and double speed settings, combined with the sneak ability, provides more than sufficient capability for the requested feature. Why does it have to explicitly be called "walk"? What if there was a mode called "walk" that changed the animation to a more walking-like animation but actually had the same movement speed? I'm just a bit confused as to why the current features are not sufficient.

If you're worried about in-game justification, just remember, the world is at risk. If you walk around everywhere you're a very lazy adventurer. Personal preferences aside, there is no "run/walk" mode that I am aware of, but there is "half speed" and "double speed". The difference is that these settings affect everything, not just your non-combat movement speed. But if you want a slower pace just use half-speed. Or enter sneak mode which is really just slower movement. Personally I am almost always in double-speed when not in combat, especially since sneaking slows you down. Double-speed sneak-mode FTW.

It must be the selection of games I play, because this is definitely NOT one of the most bug-free games I have played. I certainly weigh major bugs a lot more than minor ones, of which this game has too many. This is one of the more buggy games I have played on release, at the very least in terms of major bugs.

I'm confused now...do you need Perception, Mechanics, or both to detect secrets? Is it different for traps vs non-traps? If you need both do they have to be on the same character? I was under the impresion that Perception was the only thing that mattered for finding secrets. I even made a rogue at the first inn with max Perception just for that, but I was not maxing mechanics (I was putting points in, just not maxing it). I noticed that even with a 22 Perception I missed seeing a couple traps, but my mechanics is low enough that I would think I would have missed more traps than just those two if it's based purely on mechanics. Anyway, now I'm totally confused.

I noticed that the Two-Handed Style trait does not apply to ranged weapons. I fully expected it to apply to ranged weapnos due to the way everything else in the game generally applies to all attack types or whatever type of thing something applies to. For example, Might affects melee attacks, ranged attacks, spells, and other abilities that deal damage. Int affects AOE size for spells and other abilities. None of these have arbitrary "not on this type of thing" restrictions, especially not restrictions that are not listed in their descriptions. Except Two-Handed Style apparently, which only applies to melee weapons, even though it does not state that. If this is actually how it's intended to work the description should be updated to state as much. Or it should be fixed to apply to any two-handed weapon.

What about the ones that say "Hazard AOE"? There is one listed like this that I believe is a trap-like spell, so I assume that's what the "Hazard AOE" refers to for that one, but there's also a protective Priest spell listed as "Hazard AOE" and I have NO idea what that is supposed to mean. Does that mean the bonus applies to everyone inside the area? Only allies? Only people that enter the area after the spell is cast, as if it were a trap? Something completely different?

The "recommended" build strategy for a fighter is a tank, not a DPS. Tanks want high defenses but are not necessarily heavy hitters. Barbarian and Rogue are better suited for DPS roles. Having said that, you're welcome to make a high-might fighter if you want to. You are correct that without a high might they will not do a lot of damage. But the tradeoff will be their defenses.