Nokturnal Lex

Well I know for old school IE games you could create your own custom voice packs for your party members, sort of like how Custom Portraits work. Pretty sure you should be able to do the same with Pillars. But.... making an entire mod for every line of non-spoken dialogue though would be a hell of a feat. Not to mention you'd have to find new voice actors for each and every person in the game because a lot of them will only speak for like 30% of their total dialogue. It's definitely possible to be done, but the amount of work and time it would take to make that happen is insane. Though you could always start small, just voice a few NPCs that were never given a voice to begin with, though naturally you can't skimp on quality otherwise you're just adding bad voice acting which isn't a good thing lol. ----

One of the first mods I've love to see is just getting rid of Rest restrictions on abilities. It's easy to love the Cipher when you don't have to rest after 2 fights to be able to cast your useful spells. Resting as a mechanic I feel should've been done away with via an Option in the menu. I don't mind healing through resting, but having to rest so your Wizard/Druid/Priest can cast their good spells again just becomes tedious micromangement just like having a restricted inventory is. Also it'd be nice to have an infinite rest amount like in the old days. Having to buy camping supplies to rest is just more tedious micromanagment that contributes nothing to difficulty. Just as a general tip, If you want to create difficulty. make the AI smarter and monsters stronger/have more abilities, don't just copy pasta more enemies in the players way. Hard mode for example does this way too much, it doesn't make the game harder it just makes you rely on AoE more often. ----

Love multi-classing and dual classing with a passion. Why settle for the same old bland classes? Multi and Dual classing allowed you to create entirely new classes through interesting combinations. Naturally it had it's disadvantages too, like taking a lot longer to get higher level spells and abilities, but now-a-days no more games do Multi or Dual classing.... it's so sad. Look at Guild Wars 2 for example, they got rid of their fun as hell dual classing in it, made the game bland as hell IMO. Made the game so cookie cutter it had no replay value. It could be done in Pillars, you'd just need to balance it correctly and I think it's just not done now-a-days because people are too lazy to bother trying to balance it. Lazy bums. ---

there is an option in the IE mod to re-roll backer names into something more relevant to the area they are found in. if people are really worried about it, they can try that. all this negativiity towards backers being in game though... people might want to take a step back and consider the implications of your irrational rage. I rather think that a lot of money for this project came from people who wanted to be included in it. you start making that a negative thing.... you're going to lose a LOT of backers. would you rather projects like this never got off the ground? because seriously, that IS the fate of the vast majority of games you never even get to hear about. Could be as simple as an option to just turn them off. We get it, you backed the game, mad props, now get the **** out of my game please. lol They're as immersion breaking as developer commentary and as cool as they both are, at least developer commentary is able to be turned on and off. BTW The way killing NPCs works is you can kill anyone without a reputation loss (for the most part) as long as no one sees you do it. Which is as simple as the fog of war covering them up or them not looking in your direction when you deal the killing blow. If you can manage to 1 shot an NPC while another one has it's back turned, no rep loss cause he didn't see it lol. -----

All my loading times are like 3 seconds, only using a HDD, 8 gbs or ram and an AMD 6900 series. Pretty sure anyone complaining about the loading times either needs to upgrade or fix their own computer or it's a bug.

I think less summons/weak summons (and forcing Chanter to have to wait to cast their summons) was a design decision to prevent players from just summoning their pets at the start of combat to be expendable meat shields while they aoe'd the hell out of the enemy. Granted, you can still do it with the summons from items.... you just have to rest ----

Giving the player a choice is usually the best choice. An option for always getting xp from combat or only getting it till your learn all the lore of a creature would be best.

You can sneak passed the upstairs without killing more than 1 guy with only a small amount of stealth. (The one guy won't make you lose reputation either because noone will see you kill him) Just walk 1 character at a time to the exit in stealth. Just a work-a-round I used to avoid the reputation hit. Though a fix from Obsidian would be nice. ----

Yea Phantoms have the same 100% stun auto attack.

Pretty much, to fully flesh it out you'd have to design an entirely different game alongside it.

Yea Con is just pure hp and fortitude. Fort is the worst tank defensive stat cause usually having low fort only means you get knocked down, what happens when a tank gets knocked down? Nothing, he gets back up and keeps tanking. The most important to least important defense on tank goes Deflection > Reflex > Will > Fortitude. You want your incoming damage reduction to be as high as possible on a tank, so maxing any stat that increases Deflection and Reflex is great, will is ok, and fortitude is not required. So Constitution loses out as being only able to increase your max hp and the most useless defense, compared to other defensive stats. Though naturally might is completely unnecessary on a tank. (Funny how that works from a roleplaying perspective eh? Tanks who can barely lift a pencil) ----

The problem with the current engagement system is that melee dps is pointless in the current design of this game. While yes you could technically do more dps in melee as a rogue, you wouldn't be able to survive because tanks can't taunt and you'd have to wear heavy armor and improve defensive stats (thus making your dps suck because you're not improving those instead) The game is designed so you either build pure defense or pure offense, trying to do both makes you suck at both. Could easily be solved with aoe taunts from tanks ON TOP of the current engagement system. Or some sort of way for tanks to defend their melee dps in combat besides trying to CC everything. ----

Since Godlike seems to be the most requested I thought I'd share some of the ones I've gotten. sorry to the original creators, I did edit the pictures but I was not informed of who their original creator was so I can't properly credit them. If you want both small and big versions, you can check out my dropbox. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jw9v4wz3w281ft5/AAAwk3OAjXGYzXIcAYuyLtQ6a?dl=0 Female Death Godlike Female Fire Godlike Female Nature Godlike Female Nature Godlike Female Nature Godlike Female Moon Godlike Male Moon Godlike?

Killing things still offers loot though, especially humans. Loot turns into money, money turns into better magical items and enchanting materials. I see some people complain that they hit lvl 12 then there's no more progression, but you can still pimp out your gear... unless your gear is completely pimped out then I guess GG. ---

You can easily beat the entire game on hard without using any custom adventurers. PotD as well, it just makes combat even easier to min-max every party member. I really don't think you understood what I wrote. Try again. Try reading what you wrote, you contradicted yourself. "I play these games entirely combat and build perfection obsessed." aka A min-maxer who doesn't care about story. and then this statement is odd "I enjoy the story to the point of not wanting to take the horrible pre-made companions with me" If you enjoy the story you'd want to take the horrible pre-made companions with you because although their stats suck, they contribute to the story, if you don't care about the story though, you would prefer min-maxed adventurers and never take the horrible pre-made companions with you. And my previous reply was just saying that min-maxing isn't required at all to beat the game. It just makes it easier. So if you want a challenge, play with the horrible pre-made companions lol. Feel free to min-max, just know it only makes the game easier and have less dialogue and story. -----

You can easily beat the entire game on hard without using any custom adventurers. PotD as well, it just makes combat even easier to min-max every party member.

You need to change your thinking. The barbarian that can cleave everything in sight is intelligent on how to wield that sword to cleave everything in sight. You can still be a dumb barbarian, you just have to change your preconcieved notions about the stats in this game, and not compare them to old games. It's a design decision, could go either way depending entirely on opinion. Personally, I prefer dmg not relying on the "Strength" stat because it's also being used as a roleplaying element in this game. Mages and Rogues are stereotyped as being weak but smart/agile, but in this game in order to maximize your Mage and Rogue dps they have to max Might, thus leading to Rogues and Mages who are stronger than Barbarians and Warriors because as tanks they don't need those stats. Basically, relying on Might for dmg ruins the roleplay element, but from a game design stand point it allows damage to scale for every class evenly and easily.

Min-max is pretty simple to understand. Want a dps character? Minimize stats that don't boost damage, maximize stats that do. (Might & Dex obviously and INT and/or Perception depending on class) Want a tank character? Get rid of dps stats, maximize tank stats. (Resolve, Perception, Dex, Int and Constitution depending on class again. No might needed) Want a melee dps character? Don't bother, sadly the way the game is designed, tanks can't taunt, melee dps will get focused, so they'll need to be able to survive, but by increasing their survival you nerf the hell out of their dps. For example wearing heavy armor will allow your melee dps to not instantly die, but they'll also be doing worse dps than if they were just ranged DPS instead because heavy armor will slow down their recovery too much. It can be done, if you play carefully and CC the hell out of the enemy so your melee dps can do tons of damage without taking damage, but it's a lot easier to just make only ranged DPS characters and not have to worry about your melee dps characters instantly dying as soon as the fight starts. You can still utilize warrior and Paladin abilities even if they do 0 damage with them lol. As tanks their job is to just crowd control the enemy and distract them while the ranged DPS rip people to shreds. ----

Well it's not like well designed games like NWN, BG1&2 and Pillars couldn't be 3d games as well, the problem comes from the heads of these studios not knowing how to allocate the money properly, spending way too much time on making things look pretty and too few time making sure the game itself is challenging and fun to play. The Neverwinter MMO for example uses a pretty easy to use 3d engine, though while it has it's faults, (especially in the modding scene) it could easily be used to make games like BG, NWN and pillars. It's pretty but basic, definitely not as high definition as DA games. (Though not as expensive to use either) People wanted the in-depth, challenging, strategic cRPGs to evolve into 3d but in doing so they bit off more than they could chew and had to resort to dumbing down the game to the point of it not being fun anymore, in order to appeal to a more casual market, thus making enough money to pay off all the artists they utilized to make it look pretty in 3d. (Bioware for example, though personally I find their art style hideous, it is high-res though. High Resolution Ugly I guess.) Screw the mass market full of morons, just make games for the hardcore cRPG fans and if that means having to sacrifice graphical quality in order to improve gameplay quality.... do it. ----

Just a heads up on the whole taxes thing. I personally noticed an increase of max amount of taxes based on prestige, but security only seems to lower the chance of bandits taking taxes ,not completely negates it. (Sort of like an accuracy roll on a d-100, subtract the security number from the roll and subtract that % from taxes) Also the taxes roll can be re-rolled by reloading a save prior to taxes coming if you really want to make sure your keep is making you money instead of costing you.

Poor Olivia, no one likes Kana Rua lol My personal distaste for him comes from how unbelievable as a character he is. First off he's from a Race known to be big and strong, while he on the other hand is intellectual and idealistic. I would've preferred partying with an Aumaua that was more stereotypical for their culture seeing as we weren't introduced very much to Aumua culture as it is. Like Hiravias for example. is a great character to introduce players to Orlan culture. I understand the reasoning of making him a Chanter so he could recite and educate us on lore from Rauatai but he just seems so out of place and random. I think if he was a stereotypical stoic Barbarian Aumaua he could've still educated the players on Rautau while not being so... obvious about it. (Like you slowly learn more lore as you party with him, instead of him forcing lore down your throat as soon as you meet him) My favorites on the other hand are Grieving Mother, Eder, Hiravias and Sagani. Dura gets annoying fast with his preaching to the point when he made the quip in the brothel about finding a place to put his other staff, even though it was a funny comment I disliked him too much to care lol. Aloth while interesting seems like he should've been utilized more. He barely says much as the journey goes on even though he's afflicted with the dual personalities. He's so quiet most of the time it seems like he has no personality instead of 2 of them.

Your Eder is most likely bugged. This happens whenever you save and reload in the Area where you recruited said companion. (For Eder it's Gilded Vale) My Eder for instance has only 44 accuracy at lvl 7 bare handed. The correct amount he should have Accuracy btw is calculated through talents and buffs mainly. You may want to wait till a patch that fixes this before continuing to play that save. Just remember to never save and reload in a location you recruit a companion.

I'll just sum this up this up with DND Alignments. EA as a company is Lawful Evil Bioware used to be Neutral Good, but once bought up by Lawful Evil EA they slowly became noting more than Lawful Evil EA minions. When I think of Bioware I'm sad... not mad. For they used to be one of us... now they make MMO fetch quests in a single player RPG.... oh how the mighty have fallen.

On hard or PotD, Cipher survival is way too low to utilize in a melee dps build. Unless the rest of your team is full of tanks making sure the Cipher isn't getting hit. The Cipher's strong suit is their spells, which only require a fast weapon to utilize Soul Whip in order to build Focus. So a Blunderbuss, Warbow/Hunting Bow or Wand is fine for them, it'll also allow you to wear light armor so you can cast and attack faster. You can still switch to dual fast attack weapons for an easy to survive fight or when a hard fight has died down a bit if you want, but like I said their main purpose is their Spells that they should be spamming. It'd work better if the majority of fights in the game weren't giant AoE-fests, but most of the fights are. The rare fights where you're only fighting one monster are insanely easy whether you're melee dpsing them or ranged dpsing them. So I suggest just sticking with making a ranged dps cipher who focuses on spamming spells that way you don't have to also worry about keeping them alive long enough to actually cast said spells.

How simple would of it had been to just let the player pick all the starting stats/abilities/traits for their Companions when they join the group? Just like you can do when creating adventurers. That way it's not prebuilt to dominate or prebuilt to be useless, but completely dependent on how the player wanted to build their companions while still being able to enjoy their personalities. Creating adventurers would still have value cause you can try out different party configurations. There could even be a randomize or default option for crazy or lazy people. When designing, giving the player more choices is usually the best option. Can't wait for an well made mod to add this in.