Fardragon

It's down taste, but I feel exactly the opposite. I prefer complex philosophical stories to simplistic go there - kill that plots; I prefer role play to combat; I like Baldur's Gate better than IWD, and prefer PS:T to either.

So, Claws = Two handed weapon and Fists = Dual Wielding? Uhhh? Sure, you never seen Wolverine?

Only handbags.

Since constructs in PoE have souls, I would expect them to be affected normally by most spells. Healing spells don't specify that they can only heal biological tissue.

There is no good and evil in the PoE setting.

It's a curate's egg: good in parts. It certainly does the stronghold right, shame about the sidequests.

Bored with dragons.

I could easily afford $30, but am still far from convinced it represents reasonable value for money.

I don't think that's much of an excuse, when you could post on the forums "what would you like to see in your stronghold?". Anyway, the DAI stronghold has LESS actual content and features, and is all the better for it.

I seem to remember them being about $30. ToB for BG2 was $40 when it came out (same as the price of the base game). I think $25-$30 for this expansion is a fair price. I don't know which vendor you went too but I played £19.99 for it (when it came out), which would have been around $30. I suspect ToB (including Watcher's Keep) had considerably more content too.

I'm not convinced that "most" MMOs are open world. But It's not a feature that I care about anyway. Travelling around London by train and tube, it doesn't FEEL like an "open world" even though you can actually walk between "zones" in a few minutes.

So if true, 5 months development time for Part 1 and 7 months for Part 2? As a point of reference, TotSC was released 4 months after BG, and ToB came 9 months after BG2. HoW came 8 months after IWD. TotLM came 4 months after that. They did have much bigger teams. Round about three times the size I think.

I'm pretty sure they discouraged people from buying on Steam, and said "we don't know, it's up to GOG" about GOG. Obviously, for them, it was best for people to buy direct.

How I think it should be? Any of these: a) Random roll, no reallocation or re-rolling, or; b) stats that describe your character in role playing terms. You want to play a big strong guy, max Might and play a Fighter. You want to be clever? Max in and play a mage. I.e. DnD system, or; c) Stats should describe your role. You want to play a tank? Max out Tanking. Want to be ranged DPS? Max out Ranged Combat. Some MMOs do this. PoE ditches any role playing meaning to stats anyway, so they might as well be called by what they do.

I think this is all part of a general attempt to make Constitution matter by nerfing Deflection across the board.

I remember saying this in the past and only Gromnir kinda agreed. Glad I'm not the only one who gets this. I would say that is fairly obvious, which is why if you do try to scrutinise the setting (i.e. KOTOR2) you really haven't understood the point.

Yeah, we get it. You don't like strongholds. So what else is new? If fine with them if they work within the game. The DA:I Stronghold has been mentioned, and it works fine. As the plot has you leading an organisation, it makes perfect sense to have a base of operations. It's much less ambitious, in terms of number and range of upgrades, that what was attempted in PoE, and is so unobtrusive that I had forgotten about it. Games where you have a spaceship (KOTOR, Mass Effect) IMO don't actually do enough in terms of upgrades and customisation. But in PoE, your character isn't high level and facing retirement, they aren't running an organisation, and they haven't been charged with defending a boarder. i.e. there is no story reason for it's inclusion. Nor does it add any class-specific sidequests. It really is just there to pander to forum whiners, and is both overambitious and completely useless, whilst being impossible to completely ignore.

But that is what you can do RIGHT NOW, 'Important to all classes' doesn't mean the same as important for every application. Might f.ex. while good for every class doesn't do anything for non-damage/healing abilities so if you want to focus on that might can be deprioritised in favor of perception if you want to do lets say a CC wizard. Same with perception if you're going to play a priest who only heals and buffs since none of your casts are going to go up against a defence. Want to focus on singe-target damage? Then prioritise might/dex/per over Int. Only to a very limited degree. Any DPS (ranged/melee/single target/aoe) needs Might and Perception equally. Healers still need Might; Crowd Control and Tanks still needs Perception. It really hasn't been thought through.

A brief history of Strongholds in RPGs: 1) First appeared in 1st Edition AD&D DMG, as something for retired adventurers who have reached maximum level to do. Intended to help the DM with worldbuilding. 2) Featured in BG2, again for high level characters. Featured a set of class-specific sidequests, and hence enhanced replayablity and class-distinctiveness. 3) Featured in NWN2 OC, incorporating elements from strategy gaming. Largely successful, but the plot felt bent in order to justify the stronghold, rather than a natural adjunct. As such, contributed to the linearity and poor storytelling that blighted that release (along with the bugs). 4) A half-baked, pointless, and impossible to completely avoid blight on Pillars of Eternity.

The thing with the idea of "all stats are important to all classes" is it really needs random rolled stats in order to work. Or at the least weighted point buy. Otherwise, even if perfect balance was achieved, it would simply mean that there would be no point in changing your stats around at all. Without randomisation, it should be possible to allocate your stats to either (a) reflect the way you want to play your character. Want to play a crowd control specialist? Do your stats this way; want to focus on single target ranged damage: go this way; want to be a healer: this is your best option; and so on. Or (b) reflect role playing choices. Want to play a big strong person: focus on this stat; want to be smart: put your points into this; etc. Which puts us back into the DnD territory of stat preference being tied to your class choice.

I would just rather the developers didn't waste time on shoehorning The Sims or and RTS into a CRPG.

The multiplayer is Baldur's Gate was so popular that it was fifteen years before anyone noticed it didn't work.

Who put the sticks up their butts?

I think you may be thinking of a different game.

I prefer staff for barbarian, even if I'm standing on the front line. It allows the carnage AoE to be positioned far more effectively to hit more targets, and reach back row casters.