qualiyah

I definitely liked all the imagery in the visions for the god quests. Some of the actual quests are much more interesting than the others, though. I liked Galawain's and Rymrgand's; Hylea's and Berath's were pretty much just "go kill X," so not as exciting. One neat thing about Rymrgand's is that you can make the wrong choice and fail the quest, then go back and hear what he has to say about that.

I just finished Sagani's Persoq quest for the first time and found myself crying at the end of it. I don't know why, that one just really stabbed me right in the feels. Some people think Sagani is boring, but I found her quest so compelling that she's now probably my favorite after Eder. On the other hand, many of the other quests in the game (both companion quests, and others) seem to me like they had potential, but didn't quite pull it off because of a weak execution in one respect or another. Unfortunately, this includes the main storyline at the end of the game; the whole revelation about the gods was poorly executed and confusing, so while I eventually figured out what the story was, during the actual play-through it didn't have the desired effect, at least not for me (and I take it not for many other people either). What quests in the game did you find most powerful or satisfying?

This isn't something you need to wait until you've been to Twin Elms for. It happens as soon as you finish the lighthouse quest.

I hate missing out on the stories of the recruitable companion so much that I would prefer to have a weaker party or a gap in the party skills than to make my own companions from scratch. I figure, if sticking with recruitable companions effectively increases the difficulty of the game a little bit, that's probably a good thing rather than a bad thing. (That said, I understand some people like to make their own companions so they can play around with different classes and strategies.) Having come from playing BG, I thought the lack of a rogue was weird at first, but you really don't need one. I just pick one person in the party who doesn't need lore and have them max out mechanics. That works fine. For those extra-difficult locks, you can get a bonus from certain inn rooms, and there's a scroll that grants +3 to mechanics for when everything else fails. I just wish there were more companions to choose from! 8 is too few. If there were more companions, you could have the best of both worlds: companions with real stories and interactions, and flexibility in party make-up. I'm eagerly awaiting more companions in expansions and mods.

The wizard and priest do require some care when you use them. Spells have ranges, and some of the spell ranges are quite short. If you tell a mage or priest to cast a spell with a 5-meter range on someone 10 meters away, the caster will run up until they are close enough to cast it. This can seriously mess things up if you weren't planning for that! The way to prevent this is, when you go to cast the spell, look at the circular pointer you use to click where you want the spell to be. If it has a little icon of footprints on it, that means that spot is too far away from your spellcaster, and your caster will need to walk closer in order to cast the spell there. If you don't want your caster to do that, don't cast that spell on that spot. Or, if the pointer is red with a crossed-out eye on it, that means your caster doesn't have line-of-sight on that spot and will need to move bfeore casting. So if you don't want your spellcaster moving, you should only cast the spell if the pointer is the regular spell-casting pointer, and doesn't have footprints or an eye on it. Once you get used to managing their spells, they are fairly powerful classes. Alternately, do you accidentally have your casters set to use their melee weapons? You can switch between their two weapons; make sure they're set to be using their wand (or whatever their range weapon is) and not a sword or quarterstaff or something. The character's inventory page will show them holding the weapon they are currently using.

I strongly agree with this proposal. I had been playing kind of carelessly, and then when I finally got around to using some real strategy and setting things up so the tanks protected everyone else, I kept seeing Eder run off after some enemy and ruin the whole thing. I don't mind that there's no real AI for your party members; I don't mind having to issue commands constantly so they do the right thing; I don't even very much mind having to pause to get all my dudes to stop attacking Aloth every time he gets charmed. But permanently ruining the entirety of my battle strategy because I can't pause instantaneously and Eder decides to chase someone--that's too much. I suppose I could have Eder just stand there without attacking, but the fact that that's even an appealing or reasonable option just shows how badly broken the system is if there's no hold-in-place mechanism.

Why thank you! It's actually meant to be a BG avatar; that's my Photoshopped Imoen. :-D This is also what I was thinking of. I agree that turning PoE into a modern-style multiplayer game would be a huge resource-suck and a mistake. But Baldur's-Gate-style multiplayer is a completely different thing and seems like a relatively minor project. (We need different names for these two things.) I've never used the multiplayer in BG, but it seems like it might be worth the effort to implement given how much some people would get out of that.

I've never played an rpg on multiplayer, so out of curiosity, why are so many people so strongly opposed to it? It doesn't sound like it would require that many resources to implement multiplayer functionality, or that it would affect anything for players other than those who actually chose to use that option. What am I missing?

I think I agree with most of the folks who have posted--the balance of where the voice-acting is placed in this game is not ideal. I like to have the sound of a character's voice in my mind, especially if it's truly well-voiced. But I get bored listening to a whole *conversation* in which every line the character speaks is voiced. I think the way BG2 did this was that only the first sentence of a monologue, or the first sentence of each of the first 2-3 comments in a long conversation, would be voiced, and then everything else would just be text. That was enough that I felt like I had "heard" the conversation rather than merely reading it--but it also kept me from being bored. I think that's the perfect way to do it. I'd also like to hear more miscellaneous greetings from townsfolk, and I'd like more of the random one-line banters from companions to be voiced. In general, more short individual lines should be voiced, in a way that is more spread out around the game world, but in exchange very, very few long passages should be voiced.

The thing I most want to see in an expansion is like 5 more companions. The wider range of choices in companions--and the consequent greater freedom to then have those companions conflict with each other or storm off in a huff if they don't like your choices--is the thing I find myself missing the most about BG while I play PoE. The companions are fine characters, but I like variety, especially if doing multiple play-throughs.

My only gripe with Durance, really. It makes no sense, either. Yes, he's a gruff survivor, but in battle-mode, you'd expect him to act more or less on instinct, being an old warrior, and actually display a lot of battlefield solidarity, even if he'd go back to his brooding I-hate-you-all and my-goddess-is-a-whore-that-abandoned-me afterwards. I'd simply expect him to act in his good interest. He complains when badly wounded, after all. Why does he expect others to help him with an attitude like that ? I could even understand he's happy when Eder dies (he calls him "Eothasian"). But he's going to be cut to pieces if he doesn't help others. He just sounds like a backstabber. Come on, at least pretend they're tools and meatshields. Otherwise, he doesn't sound like he has suicidal tendencies. So why ? Eder returns the favor by proposing that the dargul on the tower feeds on Durance, but that could easily be a joke. The thing I didn't get about Durance is that, from the very beginning, I couldn't see why any sane person would actually join up with this guy. In our initial conversation what I learn is that he (a) is completely insane, (b) is the greatest possible enemy to Eder--whom I adore and actually want in my party--to the point of having actually hunted down and killed any members of Eder's religion that he could find, and © wants to travel with me so he can "judge" me and decide if I too should be murdered. Charming! What kind of nut says, "Okay, sure, come along then"?? I mean, I did, because I wanted more party members, but in-character this act made zero sense, and nothing ever occurred later in the game to change that. If this was Baldur's Gate, he and Eder would get into a fight to the death at some point. But the game has too few companions to spare for that.

I just entered an Engwithan ruin and looted the dang place, with Hiravias in my party, and he never made a peep. Given that he's a Glanfathan, shouldn't he, like, mind? Where by "mind" I mean "try to murder us all"? This wouldn't bother me if we'd at least had a conversation about it and I had to convince him that it was for the best, but none of that happened; he literally never said a word. Or did I somehow miss something that I was supposed to see?