Xosmi

People are free to enjoy what they like, no matter what your opinion on the matter is. Your apparent hate for everything that is obsidian/PoE isnt going to change the fact that i quite like playing it. Do i think they could have improved on some things ? Sure. Be that as it may, i think that overall they did a good job of delivering a game that's fun to play, even with it's flaws. I guess there are those people that feel that PoE deviated too far from the IE games that inspired it, and i feel for those people, i do. But if you can't take the game at face value for what it is, and get stuck on the things that it isn't - causing you not being able to enjoy the game, Then that's your loss.

There's gonna be people that love the game, those that like most of it or only some of it, and then there's people like OP that absolutely hate it for whatever reason. Everyone is entitled to their opinion i guess, but you know what they say - "Opinions are like a**holes. Everybody's got one and everyone thinks everyone else's stinks" I get it, you don't like the game. Personally, i do. it's not the crpg to end all crpg's, but a good game in it's own right.

Sweet, all those moon godlike backer npc's were getting on my nerves- there's just too many of em around. Time to kill them all until my PC is the last moon godlike standing in Eora

I know, right? Instead, keep shades as they are, and

You mean the secret door in the room with the gems-for eyes face, near the ooze monsters, right ? There's no 'hidden' loot there, only the container that you can only get at once the door is open, which will show up just fine even if you're not in stealth mode. The only thing 'secret' about that stash is that you need to interact with the stone face to open up the door the container is behind, that's all.

Whoah, my second level spells are per encounter now. . . Yup, at lvl 9 your 1st-level spells turn into per encounter, at lvl 11 your 2nd-level spells do as well

AFAIK, if you tell durance to leave via dialogue, you're pretty much telling him to take off, never to return again - not to take a rest in an inn/back at your stronghold. I might be wrong, but i fear the possibility is very real that you can't get him back..

they're kinda tough, but there's ways to deal with them. -there's a cloack that can spawn as random loot on the 2nd lvl of the black hound that reduces cold damage taken, putting it on your tank should help a lot. -they're weak against fire damage, hit them with your fire based spells or get some fire-lash enchanted weapons asap -if all else fails, put the rest of your party in a safe corner, then kite them on a character that uses a bow. i only ever had problems with shadows when i first entered the stronghold, and that was only because i was rushing to get all the companions. There's plenty to do to gain a few levels before you encounter shadows in big enough numbers to be an issue - once you have a few levels under your belt they're not that hard to take care of.

I still don't understand why we want to discourage movement at all. I've been slowly replaying BGTutu over the past couple of weeks, and movement ends up being one of the more dynamic and interesting parts of combat (and the loss of movement or control of movement is a huge risk). Engagement strikes me as ever more pointless. I doubt the philosophy is "movement is bad" so much as "adding the ability to control and restrict enemy movement and positioning makes for more interesting tactics". It just maybe isn't implemented so well. Sure, the way engagement is currently implemented pretty much means "movement is bad" though. But, I can simply send in my main tank into battle first, and the AI will auto target and engage just him, circumventing the entire problem. It works, but i hardly imagine that's something that was intended. Currently, i'm using the IEmod to completely disable engagement, and i feel the playthrough has become a lot more fun since then.

But cipher abilities can be used indefinately, as long as you have focus ? you don't need to rest to regain focus (though it works to refill it in one go) basic attacking works just fine, for every hit Soul Whip should be refilling your foxus..

Yeah, i've thought about going with brute force + threatening presence combo, and i probably would have gone that route if i was using 2h weapons with more range, as it is i'm moving around and re-positioning too much for it to proc reliably. Also, the way i'm focusing on accuracy right now means i allways get the bonus. I'm unsure if there are any enemies in the game that the BF+ TP combo won't work on (those with sufficiently high Fortitude that will stay higher then deflection even after the debuff from sickened status effect) but i'm guessing there's at least a few, which would create choke points progression-wise, especially playing solo.

yeah, 12 is the max level. It's safe to say that if you're just starting act 3 you're at about the halfway point of completing this game.

This is solid advice. One more thing that i've read is that the GOG version of the game works with updates that only updates the changed data, whereas the steam version replaces the entire file(s) that have changed - the steam updates being far bigger as a consequence. I havn't been able to compare the 2 myself, but what i've gathered from reading posts online the difference can be huge, a GOG update being <50MB whereas the same update for the steam version can run upto ~500MB.

If the item has free slots left, yeah. you can only upgrade items up to a score of 12, different type of enchantments take up different amount of points. so if with a fine enchantment you're already at 12/12 you can't enchant it to superb because there is no room for it on the item.

lockpicking every chest/door and disarming every trap you come across also helps a lot. you don't get a ton of exp for each one (40 exp per mechanics level required iirc) but it adds up if you do all of them. after all, beyond a certain point killing the same type of enemies won't give you exp, but disarming/lockpicking will give you exp throughout the whole game.

#1 definitely balance between survival and damage - one stands alone does a lot to increase your damage output, so you can afford building in some defense. #2 personally i prefer dual wielding 2 rapiers. they're fast, add +5 accuracy each, and 2 weapon style synergizes well enough with the attack speed bonus from frenzy and bloodlust that you won't need more then the default 10 dex to still hit fast and hard. #3 Yes, godlike is the way to go. i would pick moon godlike over fire godlike any day though, the healing ticks once you fall to 75,50 and 25% are pretty crazy with a high int score, and a high int score also increases the range on your carnage (the passive ability that turns your melee hits into AoE) INT is a barbs most important score IMHO #4 very good. 1st char i've seen that completed triple crown achievement was a barbarian, it's what i based my character on. #5 : just gonna quote myself on an earlier post in a diffrent thread where i was also discussing barbarians : I've since also picked up heart of fury @ lvl 11.

Personally, I find heavy rouge seems to be a bit offputting, unless maybe you work in the Salty Mast. Psssh. please. heavy rouge makes you and your companions look FABULOUS™

Melee wizard can be fun, since they have high might scores anyway. buff yourself with Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff + Deleterious Alacrity of Motion + Citzal's Martial Power and start whacking away For some increased safety, start off tanged by replacing casting Kalakoth's Minor Blights + Alacricity + Citzal's, then cast concelhauts once your blights run out and move in for the kill.

Buy, then enchant. there's several items with unique effects you can't enchant onto them yourself.

I would really advice you to max mechanics on either your PC or one of your companions, as the game goes on and you travel on to more difficult locations, the higher of a mechanics score you will need to find traps/hidden objects/pick the locks on doors and chests. It's not uncommon to find doors/traps that need 9/10 mechanics to unlock and disarm as soon as the later part of chapter 2. Personally i am maxing mechanics on my player character, as far as the game-supplied companions go i guess durance would be your best bet to max it on since he gets the highest mechanics score to start off with. You could also opt to hire an adventurer, in which case rogue is a good class for the purpose of a mechanics-toon, since they get a +2 bonus.

Yeah, i didn't mean to say you should forego strength entirely, having a good score in it is important as well. However, i feel that 16 base is enough, you can get +2/3 from item bonus easily. I feel that beyond that you start to see diminishing returns on investing pure stat points into might. As far as abilities and talents go, here's what i have on my lvl 10 barbarian at the moment: Lvl 1 : Frenzy - for obvious reasons, the +might and con are nice, the increased attack speed is very nice to have since i only have 10 dex. Lvl 2 : Accurate carnage - more accuracy means more hits and crits. Lvl 3 : Savage defiance - Gets you through lvl 3 and 4, nice to have all around - you can't do damage if you're laying on the ground unconscious. Lvl 4 : Stalwart Defiance - beefs up savage defiance to give +10 to all defenses, really nice to have, since i usually use savage defiance after frenzy has worn off - this offsets the loss of offense by giving me better defense. nice for those longer battles. Lvl 5 : One stands along - For obvious reasons. +20 damage on all hits and being able to engage 1 more enemy before being flanked is really OP, pretty much the ability that makes this class work as well as it does. Lvl 6 : Two weapon style - More attack speed. Lvl 7 : Bloodlust : It's easy to down 2 enemies fast as a barb because our melee AoE's, this passive gives you x1.2 attack speed for 8 seconds once you do. This, paired with the attack speed from 2 weapon style and frenzy, pus the fact that i am using 2 rapiers, wich are both fast weapons i hit very often. not as much of a shotgun as a monk with 20 dex and 2 weapon style, but close enough. Lvl 8 : Weapon focus : Noble : Adds +6 accuracy to attacks with my rapiers. i use 2 rapiers because they get a +5 accuracy bonnus on their own. together with the bonus from accurate carnage that's +21 accuracy right there. Lvl 9 : Thick skinned : 2 more DR vs melee attacks is never a bad thing. Barbarian shout is also a good contender, but i prefer thick skinned since i dont need to activate it, it's allways 'on' since it's a passive. Lvl 10 : Savage attack : my 2nd reason for stacking accuracy. this modal ability lets you trade in 5 accuracy for 1.2x the attack damage. gives you a bigger damage bonus then might stacking I plan on taking heart of fury for lvl 11, not sure about what i'll do at level 12 - i might go for wild sprint, so i can close the distance with ranged enemies and spellcasters quicker. As you can see, i don't really get any bonus might from my talents (besides the base +4 during frenzy), instead relying on one stands alone and savage attack to boost my damage. I could swap around some talents to focus more on might and get a bit more damage out of my character, but i'd be taking a significant hit to my survivability, and more importantly to my attack speed - meaning that in the end, i'll hit harder but less often, doing less total damage in the same time span.

1) I have to admit that... I hate to sleep. (It was the same in BG.) I know that you lose nothing in the game when you use 8 hours... but I feel bad when I rest "too much", it's like breaking game mechanics. It's weird that the only thing you have to invest to replenish your health is "in-game" time... when in-game time worth nothing. Ok, there is campfires now... but you can always easily backtrack to an inn (there is very few exceptions). I think that tiredness and "per rest" abilities (and health now) are good tribute to Baldur's Gate, are maybe important for "role players", but are not really interesting gameplay features! At least, if the game annoys you with resting, it could be more important. (For example, timing could be important to resolve some quests, could impact the result of some situations, could lead to ennemies come back so you can not sleep 10 times during dungeon exploration, etc...) But, of course, you're right! If you take the game as it is, this exploit is not interesting at all. Except maybe if you try to do an "in-game time" speedrun... Small spoil (I would prefer to know that before I finish the game) : 2) I think that when you unlock a lock with mechanics, it's something like "lock level x 30 xp". It's not so much, for sure, because there is not so many keys... But why not taking this experience if you could? I'm still thinking that finding a key to open a door should give you more experience that unlock it. Nothing stops you from doing it, I just think it's pretty weird, unusual and cumbersome to bother to do it in such unintuitive ways when the game easily lets you play more simply. I have to say i agree on this - every place that lets you swap out companions is also a place where you can sleep anyway. The only reason not to make use of that and simply rest instead of swapping out party members is for RP reasons i guess. in the case of #2 though, i have to admit that wherever possible i do pick locks, even if a key is available somewhere. since i built my barbarian to be able to solo if need be, i specced him for mechanics (which is at 10 at the moment) and the sheer amount of doors/chests to unlock really add up in the end. in the area with the skaenite cultists for example, there's 2 doors that require 9 mechanics that give 240 exp each, and another that requires lvl 8 for another 200. There's another door and chest that both need 7 mechanics and 1 chest that needs 6 mechanics in the same area, if i recall correctly you gain 40 xp per level of the lock, totaling at an easy 1840 extra exp points just for picking those locks -roughly 3/4th of which you would be missing out on by using the key.

Balancing gone wrong i guess, i can see why they would want to avoid a revive at 100% endurance with no penalty at all, though having the penalty be a % of max endurance instead of a flat number would have been the smart thing to do here.

Unforunately, Nexus do not allow account creation for those who use Tor (and presumably other online privacy tools). Now that is their perogative, but it does confirm the post title as correct - mods on Nexus not being freely available. And their method of pushing premium accounts is really just as sleazy (though not illegal) as the behaviour of some "free" download sites. Not Obsidian's fault, but a plea for any modmakers out there - please provide mirrors using sites that don't require accounts. Also some of the BG2 modding forums should be willing to provide hosting. You don't need Tor to register with Nexus or to download the mod. Moot point--end of discussion. When you want to download from Nexus, turn off Tor. The software is available from Nexus and free of charge. Besides that, no self-respecting person who thinks he's a "gamer" should be without a free Nexus account--the site has hundreds if not thousands of mods for dozens of games. I've had a free Nexus account for many years and Nexus has never once "pushed" a premium account on me. Here's the thing some people have no concept of, however: putting up a server from which people can download game mods costs money--the person who does that cannot do it for free. Nexus is a great site--it utilizes dozens of servers which have to be paid for by somebody. It utilizes great software like the Nexus Mod Manager that is constantly being improved and has to be paid for--software doesn't grow on trees in the wild. So criticizing them for asking for donations is idiotic in the extreme--without those funds Nexus would not exist. You don't have to contribute (which you can do for far less than $50, btw) if you don't want to--you can still join for free and download for free. So what if they ask you to turn of Tor as a condition before you can download? If you want the mod, you'll do that gladly. The thing to remember is this: just because you have a computer and you buy a game doesn't mean that anybody owes you anything for "free." You are not entitled to anything for free simply because you exist and you want it. That's a valuable lesson that some people never learn. To be fair, the guy might have his reasons for using tor or even having to use tor, for reasons such as circumventing censorship, or privacy reasons. So it might be he simply does not have the option of reaching the nexus site without the use of tor. Also, the implication that you can't be "self-respecting" or a "gamer" without a nexus account is utter nonsense - i agree that having a nexus account is a great help if you play any of the games they offer mods for, but having an account there is in no way a mandatory requirement for either of those things. If you play games, you are a gamer. And respect is something everyone is entitled to, until they prove otherwise - respect is not something one can gain by adhering to some arbitrary qualifications a random person or instance (in this case you) makes up on the spot. The only problem i see with the original post is that OP mistakenly took the nexus/IEmod to be the same thing as obsidian, instead of a standalone website/mod. On the point of not being owed anything for "free" once you buy a game - at least you are owed a product that works as advertised, a game-breaking bug is a clear defect to the product, though admittedly, this falls totally on obsidian, and the obligation to fix this lies with them. TL,DR: Yeah, OP went off on a bit of a tangent with his rant, which i imagine was fueled mostly by an equal parts misunderstanding about nexus/IEmod not being related to Obsidian and anger at the fact he encountered a bug that prevented him from progressing in the game, but you're the one that's being condescending here, and you would do well to get off your high horse. To OP : As far as solving your problem goes, I've already explained how to make a free account on the nexus in one of my earlier posts, though you might have to access their site without the use of TOR. if that really is not an option to you, there's a limited few things you can do : It might be that you missed some kind of quest trigger somewhere. try and talk to the head warden (the statue) on the main floor again, see if you can ask to get access to the patient ward during dialogue, and try talking to Freyol in the patient ward itself, who should point you to the location he is standing, in hopes of (re)triggering whatever option makes Caedman Azo spawn. If that doesn't work, i can't think of any other solutions then either waiting on an official patch by obsidian to fix this problem, restarting from an earlier save before you encountered this bug, or if you don't have an earlier save to restart completely in the worst case. Addendum : After digging into the game files somewhat, i can find reference to 4 quest states before one should be able to talk to Caedman Azo, described as following : 1 -"Speak to Ethelmoer" : puts n_Sanitarium_Quest_Stage at a value of 1, so i assume this is what starts off the quest and sets it as active, moving on to quest state 2 after talking to Ethelmoer (statue on the 1st floor) for the first time. 2- "Question the Animancers" : sets Quest stage at 3 once completed - as far as i remember this quest stage completes when you pick up the documents from the locked box in caedman's Azo's office (the room just to the right before the entrance door to the patient wards, same room that has the NPC called Riply in it) grabbing the documents (might need to read them too) should advance the quest state to a value of 3. 3-"Talk to Ethelmoer about Azo" : After retrieving the documents you have to talk to talk to the statue again to advance to the next quest stage (4) 4- "Confront Azo" : i'm assuming this is the point where Azo spawns and is accessible. so that's 3 seperate occasions where you could have failed to properly trigger the quest to advance : not starting the quest by talking to Ethelmoer in the first place, not getting the documents from the locked box, and not returning to ethelmoer after grabbing the documents.

a decent idea in and of itself, it's there in a minor form already in the stormwall gorge, where the water recedes, either automatically after a specific point in the game, or through intervention of the player at an earlier point if you decide to do quests for one of the factions.