Trauma_Hound

I noticed this also actually. I didn't do a whole lot of experimenting with it, but it annoyed me when I noticed it and I did do a bit of double checking. There is certainly something they lock on to due to the nakedness there. I know in NWN2 the enemies are set to attack the lowest AC party member this also annoyed the **** out of me.

Leveling didn't seem too big of an issue to me, but that's because I filled up all my companion slots ASAP so my guy wasn't getting 2000xp per quest alone at the beginning of the game. Hell, I was only level 11 by the time I killed the Adra Dragon. (I had not completed the story yet). Personally I don't think levels are that big of a deal except only to unlock some cool abilities that are locked via level restraints. I think levels should matter more.

They should have allowed us to roll attributes. Who cares if someone sits around rerolling for amazing stats, most people would be okay with decent stats and move on.

What causes the long load times? I barely have time to read half the "tool tip" on the glimpses of them that I see.

The buffs that really matter (not counting chants here) have limited uses per rest (and once the lower-level buffs become per-encounter, they are not as strong anymore). Therefore, clearly not "every fight" would need to be designed to depend on buffing. But larger encounters ('boss fights') definitely *should* give the player the opportunity to prepare everything they have at their disposal. It just doesn't *feel* right from a player / storytelling perspective otherwise, no matter how balanced it might seem. Plan your pulls with care and do so in a manner where you have time to pop a buff off or two before they get to you if you want buffing time, it would be more realistic that way also cause I don't think enemies would just sit around while they listened and watched you from a distance casting your buffs.

Nope, you get the achievement as soon as you get the 1200th kill, while the Relative Pacifist achievement requires a finished game. It's not comparing like to like, but it's obvious that people are not shying away from battle just because they don't get XP for it. Well the achievement specifies completing the game. Also that's just steam and that people who didn't use the command console for anything. Which I bet plenty of people used the command console for a number of different reasons. So I still don't see how the achievements are even reliable for tracking any sort of information? Besides killing monsters does net you Loot and XP. Not exactly certain what you attempt to prove. That's not saying that I don't agree with you - that killing monsters is fun even without xp or loot, because overcoming challenges, even minor ones are fun.

That's why I have all the other stuff in there for context: more people have killed 1200 enemies than have cleared out the Endless Paths. Way more than have completed the game. The achievement is for Completing the game with 1200 + kills. So it's safe to assume that more than 5.3% of people who have played the game have completed the game, period.

On that note, this directly ties into the issues of an unlimited stash and infinigold merchants, as well as the fact that the enchanting system is built around the acquisition of bodyparts. Sorry I don't want the hassle of this merchant only having 500 copper for a week, and Inventory Management is something better left for the OCD. I'm certain there's more than 1 or 3 merchants in an entire city, and you could easily sell all the crap you gather upon visiting a city. Just the Devs don't want to dev 100 merchants or dev an entire city. That's beside the point, really. Personally, I'm willing to accept hassle in the name of consistency and game mechanics that interact well, rather than working against eachother. But ultimately, if you want there to be no "hassle", it is not inconceivable that there is some kind of reasonable compromise. I didn't say what I said because I support the idea of merchants with restricted gold (because while I do, ultimately you're right in that in relation to this particular concern, yes, you could most likely just visit a few different merchants) but merely in an attempt to explain the issues and understand them. Ultimately, you could take everything in the IE games and drag it to a vendor by going back and forth 500 times, too, but people still didn't bother to do that. Why? Because it was a hassle. A "hassle" in itself can serve as a restrictive mechanic, and a pretty reasonable one at that. Okay, I can concede that it's a reasonable mechanic, and I would do it if I had to, fact is I don't and it's something I was certainly grateful for. They just need more money sinks in the game perhaps? If there's an achievement for killing 1200 monsters and NPCs then I would suspect that you have to go out of your way to kill 1200 MONSTERS AND NPCs ... You're still rewarded with XP and Loot from killing monsters. It's not "a lot" of monster like the OP said. It's probably the majority of the living things in the game?

Steam has an achievmeent for killing less than 175 enemies and one for killing a lot, don't remember exact number. OP is presumably reporting the % of how many people got them so far. Well, the OP forgot about bestiary XP apparently. Also how many monsters count as "a lot"? I kill everything that's hostile that I come across. Edit: OP also forgot to mention that only 8.6% of players have completed Act 2. Nuff said on Biased and terrible stat quotes.

I'm pretty certain the OPs numbers are off, hence why I wanted him to explain in detail what they mean rather than post some obscure quote like they were making a point. Beside's whatever the OP posted is so ambiguous you have to try and think about what they are saying. Because as is their post makes no sense. (at least not the bit with numbers) People kill stuff because you still get combat XP, just in a non direct way. (duh) On that note, this directly ties into the issues of an unlimited stash and infinigold merchants, as well as the fact that the enchanting system is built around the acquisition of bodyparts. Sorry I don't want the hassle of this merchant only having 500 copper for a week, and Inventory Management is something better left for the OCD. I'm certain there's more than 1 or 3 merchants in an entire city, and you could easily sell all the crap you gather upon visiting a city. Just the Devs don't want to dev 100 merchants or dev an entire city.

Mind actually making sense of that for those of us who don't know what you're talking about?

The game isn't a 9 or a 10 as it stands, wait until the final patch and all the mods to come out, only time will tell.

This is already a feature of the command console, why would anyone make a mod for this. Just makes me laugh when I think about how a changing game mechanics via hacking isn't the same thing as cheating by using a feature within the game. If you mod the game in this way it's the same damn thing as typing rest into your command console every time you use that unlimited rest feature.

Nah man, your game, play it how you want to play it, people are always like "man I want a mod for this or that," when they can do it in the command console, like modding the game isn't the same thing as using the command console to do the same thing. People just like to try and justify their "cheating" with some obscurity or another, makes them feel superior. As long as you're having fun, that's what matters.

How about you tell me which fight you're having trouble with in the Stronghold so I don't accidentally mention any spoilers? Most fights in the underground of the Stronghold can be bottlenecked at door ways to prevent from being swarmed, can easily make the fight 1 vs Party in most cases.