GuyNice

Thank you! Looking forward to the next update

Oh, so this is just a display error? Are the right talents and spells available at level up? I was hoping to start a new playthrough as a single class Shifter with this mod this weekend.

Hey, I tried the mod with a new game and for some reason the new abilities are not usable. I can see them when shifted but can't select/activate them. Also the talent tree appears correctly in character creation, but in-game when I open the "View Tree" I don't see the new talents and the spell selection is wrong. Did I install incorrectly? I only used the file you linked here in the previous page (version 0.41). Edit: I'm fine with disabling scrolls too.

Sounds great!

Thanks for the update! The changes sounds great, I'll check it out.

I'm a late comer to the thread but I'm really excited after reading some of the changes you've made to shifters. Looking forward to new playthrough as one with the new DLC. Subbed.

The game is more difficult early on, and in some specific encounters. But most encounters haven't been redesigned and become a cakewalk, past level 10 or so. Past that point literally 90% of fights you can sit back and drink coffee while the AI wins by itself. Same thing even with mods. The problem is there is some very very powerful gear that is extremely easy to get a hold of, not too far into the game. And it's everywhere so you can't just ignore that 1-2 items. The game is clearly nowhere near balanced and challenge modes like no pausing or play solo aren't the solution. This is a party based RTWP game, not an aRPG, it's simply not as enjoyable when played that way. The game isn't ready and I expect it won't be for another year or so. I don't regret backing the game + season pass but I am disappointed with it and can't bring myself to continue either of my 2 playthroughs or even try the DLC without significant additional balancing for PotD.

I'm especially disappointed by the lack of balancing and PotD tuning, I've been putting off finishing my 2 concurrent playthroughs and haven't touched the game in over a month. It's just as you said, after hitting level 12 or so practically every fight is a blowout. No tactics needed, AI just wipes out the encounter in seconds. That's around half the game on the highest difficulty offering little to no challenge. No point in playing. This should be addressed before or at least along any major DLC release.

Yeah, the easy availability of ridiculously powerful loot is another major issue with the game's balancing. Hopefully they'll have a finished game in a year or two.

Wonderful!! Thanks for the update

Not sure if I understood the question, but Maia's A.I. also doesn't activate any abilities for me. The same as the other companions (and Watcher).

Thank you. I sent an email with the save attached. Let me know if you need any other information to reproduce the bug.

Yeah, it's a bit more worthy now. Actually, concussive shot seems really good now, too (1 bond), play dead (2 bond), evasive fire (1 bond). Barring the lack of acc. boost, the ranger really looks like a fun single-class for me to play, especially if you want utility, and you don't mind spending points on the pet. I just counted, and with (i think it is) 28 points, you actually don't lack for good pick-options. Full ranger next playthrough for me, I'm happy. Ranger pets still attack way too slow and their base damage doesn't scale. Meaning talents that add +% give less and less relative benefit as you gain levels. It's very hard to justify taking anything but Resilient, Vicious, and Protective companion. And the latter only because it's a prerequisite for Stalkers' Link. I'd like to see companion damage scaling change to multiplicative instead of additive. That way you'll have a reason to invest in the pure damage passives for pets (besides penetration).

As the title states, with 1.1 beta installed the party A.I. is not using abilities despite auto attacks + abilities being enabled in A.I. settings.

You can easily mod that, and a few other changes. Also remember how bad PoE was before 2.0. And even then it was bad compared to 3.0+. Balance is an iterative process. They deliver the fixes quickly and make it perfect too. But overall I think the game will be in a much better and more interesting place now, with actual challenge. Nothing wrong with making some adjustments you feel are necessary until we get even more official balancing. After all they did improve modding support for a reason.

I also play on PotD with the difficulty mod. Spells are definitely viable, there are however certain enemies like bosses which will be extremely hard to hit unless they have 1 lower defense. That said I'm doing fine with 2 spell casters in my party (Geomancer Maia and Druid Tekehu) with no Devotions, only Zealous Focus for party acc buff. I just killed my first 'big boss' on the critical path and it was pretty challenging since I didnt know its attacks, even had some characters die but ultimately pulled through. I avoid the proc chains as mentioned and also don't empower spells, only use empower to replenish resources if needed. I also try not to rest too often, usually only if I get an injury, which is rare. I don't rely on per rest mechanics.

Keep in mind that blunderbuss' and pistols are currently bugged and attack frequency (animation + reload) can't be faster than 3.6~ seconds (even if the tooltip shows otherwise). That really killed my enthusiasm for dual pistol/blunderbuss builds until fixed. It's quite easy to reach that mark, so I wouldn't go for anything that derives most of its power from stacking recovery/reload (like Streetfighter) since you'll be quickly capped just by dual wielding + passive and a piece of gear or 2 for faster reload.

I 100% your 100% good sir. I myself am waiting until they actually finish the game, before supporting them with a finished price tag. Things didn't work on launch (literally - level scaling flat didn't work for example), there was alot of bugs and performance issues, the higher difficulties weren't actually balanced - having to be done as we speak post release. Etc. It was/is a mess that they pushed out the door because business and completely relied on hype and the gaming communities general impatience, to sell it either way while they still worked on finishing it and getting a much bigger and free QA/beta test pool. Not something i personally want to support/encourage. While I completely sympathize with your criticism, I still think any serious cRPG fan should support Obsidian with a full price purchase (if you can afford it). They proved with first game that they will fix the issues, but the fact is they are making ambitious projects, trying to overdeliver despite relatively limited resources, in a complex genre that has been abandoned by AAA publishers. They also don't try to nickle-and-dime with cosmetic DLC or microtransactions which are extremely common in RPGs these days. For those reasons and for the abundant quality content in this game, I believe they deserve the financial support of the core gamers, even though I agree, the game was released in an unfinished state (and it still is even now). The fact is, no one else besides maybe Larian (DOS is similar but not exactly the same genre) is making quality games of epic scope in this genre anymore. It seems like sales figures haven't been exactly stellar, so they need all the support they can get, especially at full price, if there is to be any hope of seeing another game like this any time soon. That said, if you haven't started your game yet and have the patience to wait a bit longer, I think you will have a much better experience in about a week or 2, once they released the first major patch. Besides the difficulty issues (which are alleviated somewhat by mods), there are still game breaking issues like bugged saves which won't load (I myself lost over 20 hours of gameplay on my 2nd playthrough). TL;DR buy now to support Obsidian and wait until the first patch for a better experience.

Weirdly I don't have that issue on my Berserker, I can choose any of the Frenzy upgrades.

Right now you don't really need Resolve. With faith and devotion and constant recovery you will have more than enough defense. You don't even need a shield. So I would leave Resolve at 8 or even lower if you feel comfortable with that RP wise. Pump up your Per/Dex/Mig/Int (in that order). If you want to be more durable I'd increase Con over Res since your base HP is high as a Crusader.

Well if you have that issue simply build your tanks more offensively with high engagement. Melee attackers would probably not try to rush to you anymore, but if they do they will take heavy damage to get there. You could also surround yourself with summons to body block, or equip mobility items (like the leap boots which you can get early) to force melee attackers to walk through engagement twice or more. By then they should be dead, and if played right they shouldn't even touch you. Ranged attackers is a different issue but it seems to be the exception rather than the rule, unless you're doing nothing but naval combat. But even then you can manipulate the battle field with CC and summons, disable the ranged attackers, out-range them etc. If anything this AI quirk forces you to play different encounters differently, or god forbid wear some armor, which in my book is a good thing.

I don't have this issue on my Ranger/Chanter watcher. Yes, sometimes ranged enemies will focus him on combat start if stealth is not an option. But you can work around that. There are items that activate extra defenses when you are near death, some of which are available very early like Protective Eothasian Charm amulet (available in Port Maje), which restores health and reduces damage taken by 75% when near death. On top of that you have food like rice which gives -10% damage taken at all times and is easily available. As a druid, you can have 10 armor with 0 recovery at the beginning of every battle (although your equipped items won't work if you do). Plus you have consumables like Spirit Shield which gives +3 armor and is cheap. Have your Paladin cast Lay On Hands and your Priest throw a heal and there's no way you should be dying that easily, in fact the issue is opposite, the game is too easy. And I'm playing on PotD with enhanced difficulty mod (2nd playthrough). TL;DR the game gives you plenty of tools to survive focus fire, use them.

On my first playthrough (I have 2 concurrent, 1 of which I had to abandon due to a bugged save) I went with mountain dwarf Berserker/Bleak Walker (main), Fighter/Rogue (Eder), Paladin/Chanter (Pallegina), Ranger/Wizard (Maia) and the last spot I rotate Xoti (Priest) Tekehu (Druid) and Serafen (Cipher). Aloth is pure Wizard but almost never sees play. I'll finish his quest once I figure out how. I'm very happy with all my class choices, especially with Maia which is surprisingly effective as a Geomancer.

Resilient Companion is useful if you want your pet to offtank. The damage talents are kind of a waste since the base damage and attack speed are so bad. Protective Companion is necessary to get Stalker's Link which is worth 2 talents IMO. It's also bugged and seems to always provide +10 acc whether you're attacking your pet's target or otherwise. It also works with spells and abilities in AoE. My Ranger/Wizard Maia makes great use of it. If you really have nothing you want to spend points on then Vicious Companion is the best of the companion damage talents, since it boosts penetration. Still, the damage boost you'd get compared to what your character/party can output with good items is a drop in the ocean.

Companions are useless and weak in general, also in team play. The bring nothing apart from free Flanked on enemy, which Cipher can do with Level II spell for whole screen... And on PotD pet won't tank much unless you have some priest or paladin baby sitting it. And rnemy AI resetting due to invisibility is not an exploit, it's how the game mechanic works. Blame Obsidian for it. As for reload, i would just have to use hit-n-run tactic with smoke veil and wouldn't have any problem with solo run. Not to mention Spearcaster with Skerwer. If you want I can do rerun of this area for you without reload trick- it will be longer but I will have no problem soloing it. It's how the game works because the game was explicitly not designed based on solo play. Using a loophole that is clearly overperforming in a scenario the developers did not design around, then trying to compare it to something that doesn't overperform in that specific scenario, is a bad basis for comparison. It's still not exploit. Game can be played solo - check. AI resetting on stealth as game design - check. Creating full party with Smoke Veil to do it with whole party- check. Overperforming because of bad developers design - check. It's game mechanic and it works how it works. In game there are always mechanics that works better/overperform vs others. There is a difference between exploit (like infinite empower on Drakes or reload cancel) and simply bad design (AI resetting on stealth, enemies scalling bad, weapon effect procing on things like Carnage or R.Pain). It's a video game after all. There is always over and under performing mechanics. I still think it's a bad basis for comparison. It's like saying 99% of abilities in the game suck compared to swift flurry with multi-hit weapons (or other cascading effects like Sun and Moon). The outliers are problematic, not the baseline. Same with invisibility and out-of-sight AoE from stealth. They trivialize content. Not a good comparison.