MalVeauX

Heya, Level 4/5 can be tough depending on difficulty in this area without a lot of tactics. I rolled it at level 4 no problem with a bunch of casters. But in another game, I tried at level 5 with a bunch of ranged characters and it was pretty hard to do. So the Paladins are not doing it, they're just tanks and annoying because they heal and just tank and get in the way, while doing minor damage with their two hand swords. The sellswords will kill your characters, they're rogues. The priests and wizards are pretty annoying too. I always open every fight spiking out any priest or wizard, followed by any sellsword/rogue-like character, and let the paladins and other "fighters" just stand there and beat on my tanks as they just are not a threat to most tank characters. Very best,

Heya, I too, in 1.06, have had absurd fights with Ogre Druids casting Plague of Insects. And I have used Plague of Insects with my Druid on enemies and it absolutely nukes the room. I open a lot of fights with Plague of Insects, it's broken for sure, something is really not right in that spell. It doesn't seem to miss, ever, and does raw damage, and it does so much damage so fast, I think the timer ticker is busted and it's really high DPS and the duration just never stops until way after the battle music stops and you're looting. So when I face anything with Plague of Insects, I have to try and lure them with a single character while the other party members are far away from that mess. Otherwise, get wiped. I place traps, seals (hazards) and open with a single character that I can afford to lose, while the rest of the party waits out the initial Plague casting. More manageable. Very best,

Heya, Seems to me it would be a nice touch to add. A lot of previous games had this, to a degree. Fallout 1 & 2 really had this kind of encounter thing and it was splendid. End game, you could do random encounters just for fun to build up exp and get that last level or something. I could see someone doing random encounters non-stop early game just to get to a higher level to tackle Act I without any stress, and thus the rest of the game being super easy at that point unless POTD, etc. Right now, travel time only serves one purpose: speeding up stronghold upgrades. There's zero reason in the game to travel 12 hours from place to place, as nothing is time based at all in this game or time sensitive, other than stronghold upgrades and processes. Things I too would want to see randomly: 1. Merchants that have "stolen" goods and "proper" goods at different prices, and you can take a rep hit for one, or get access to more interesting gear this way. Mostly scrolls, consumables. potions, a few minor items, camp supplies, etc. Maybe a special item (weapon, armor, trinket, jewelry) that is randomly generated. 2. Situations that involve a choice that effects reputation or alignment with NPC's involved. Bandits on a local people from a town, patrols of knights, etc. 3. Straight combat encounters, you walked up on a dire bear or stumble onto a nest of trolls out for a stroll at night. 4. Randomly generated maps with explorable content, random NPC's or beasts, etc. If nothing else a bunch of harvestable herbs and a random encounter chance. 5. Easter egg encounters. We all loved walking up on a downed flying saucer and finding a ray gun. Very best,

Heya, What level is your tank? Is it happening when fighting paladins? Or more when fighting spellcasters, priests and rogues basically? Very best,

Heya, Well, since you're doing a full party, and you have two tanks already, and you have upwards of 3 damage dealers, you could be the support character really. So, Druid, Priest, Wizard, with a ranged weapon perhaps and focus on support stuff. Example, as a Wizard, you could focus on casting conditions (mass blindness, mass prone, confuse, etc) while attacking from range. As a Druid you can heal, buff, and throw attack spells and sort of do it all, and spirit shift to be a werewolf or something if your tanks get bypassed, very general character. As a Priest you get some great buffs, some really nice debuffs, some heals, and some powerful "saves" and simply provide extra damage with a reach weapon or ranged weapon. Very best,

Heya, Or, instead of revamping stuff, simply make the battles longer via either more enemies or more difficult enemies. Then everything works as designed and as it is currently. Just kidding. Having played 3 Chanters now, I find them to be effective, but obviously they're flawed under a micro-scope from a number crunching point of view. I think a lot of the phrases would be far more interesting and appealing if they scaled with level in some way. Right now, some of them are down-right unappealing at all, let alone too minimal of an effect to matter or be interesting. There are a few that are very good, to ok. For example, why would anyone choose the endurance draining phrase at any level? It's so minimal and doesn't scale, and it's totally insignificant. But, if it could scale (and stack), it would actually become interesting possibly (especially a large radius, higher draining effect via a specific talent for mid/late game). Some of the invocations are powerful and useful early and late game. Phantoms for example. Paralyzing cones of course. Others are totally wimpy late game, like Skeletons (why do they not scale and become... better skeletons, late game?). I think some more specific talents, like focus chant based talents to specifically craft a chanter to be able to go with faster, shorter lower level phrases and quicker invocations; or slower longer more potent phrases and less invocations, would be interesting. Very best,

Heya, As a tank, any weapon will work when you're attacking things that are targeting your Deflection score. But, after playing a few tanks, what I really come to appreciate is when you're facing a foe who attacks your Reflex or Will, not Deflection, being able to lose the shield and not worry about Deflection and use all your time holding a huge two hand weapon and beating the doodoo out of that attacker (priest, wizard, etc; things that are casting on your Reflex, and don't care about your Shield very much, nor Deflection in general for that matter). Killing them faster is a good idea. Very best,

Heya, So I completed the party and finished Act I pretty easily. Ended up with: Chanters x 2 (each setup as a tank, with phantom summons, talents supporting deflection; one has high mechanics, one has high lore, both have -90% combat fatigue athletics) Wizards x 3 (each setup as pure AOE DPS, with blast & penetrating blast for single target focus using wands & scepters) Priest x 1 (setup as DPS with a scepter focusing on heals, buffs and enemy conditions, I micro-manage his placement carefully) Much more fun so far, than playing a fighter / ranged DPS (guns with gunner/chant/marksman) that I played before. Lots of utility with the different spells. Tanks are not as good as pure fighters, but they're good enough to hold out long enough to get summons out that help tank and deal damage, but really just micro-managing the first volley of spells, the friendly arcane blasts that do AOE RAW damage without hurting the tanks, and the nasty combination of other spells (blind, confuse, followed by single target volleys of either lighting or corrode spells, or just wanding to death). Walked through Raedric's Keep at level 4 and it was pretty easy with good micro-managing of choices and choke points. Cleared each map up to Defiance Bay and am starting Act II now. You're right, in that choosing Mental Fortress is pointless. My buffs and high INT makes it pretty much a moot point. All my characters have max to near max INT. Body control is also not chosen, since I have chants and buffs that take care of all of that. Prayers also take care of the rest if necessary. Talents so far are just the basics, like Ancient Memory on the tanks, with Weapon & Shield for deflection bonus, working towards Superior Deflection. Wizards are all using blast/penetrating blast. Priest is using radiance with frighten and two hand talent for damage with the scepter (and quarter staff on 2nd slot). Very best,

Hrm, Seems everything is released in "threes" at least these days, from films to games. It's a winning (in terms of commerce) model in today's consumerism world. That said, I just really hope that eventually the game will be opened up to community content, the way Neverwinter Nights is, so that completely new campaigns can be made by really dedicated and appreciated people who make really fun side quests, side campaigns, or simply expand on certain things. Would require the ability to save characters and not just save games though. Might not be possible in this particular interface if not implemented from early on. But I don't know. Very best,

Heya, I just bought it off Steam and played through it completely once (v1.06). I had no issues, not enough bug stuff to stop anything or break the game. Seems stable enough. I would not wait 2 years. I would just play it now and enjoy. You can play again after the expansion is released too. Very best,

Heya, Hrm, I was just comparing a few of my characters with and without gear between a Fighter (with high Resolve/Perception) and Defender, Wary Defender, Greater Deflection and things like +10 Deflection item and a Hatchet and of course a Fine Large Shield or equivalent, to see the difference in general. And my Fighter was over 120, while my Wizard and Priest were mid 80's, and the Chanter was close to 100 or so. That's before spells & abilities, just what is listed in the party screen basically. After playing through the game, I found that anything after Deflection of 120 in Hard was basically overkill. They got hit sometimes, but not enough to care. I'm sure on PoTD it would be a little more important to get it higher. But in casual (what I consider easy through hard to be), Deflection 120 seems to be good enough for the entire game, give or take some lucky rolls on the enemy's side of things. With utility and spells, and a few items, having Deflection scores in the 80~100 area, with some heals here and there, it may work out. Right now I'm looking at how I should build the Main character and the hirelings. I'm thinking of playing as a Wizard or just the Priest, so that I can manage the dialog and reputation stuff better and to make early game a little more difficult in general. Right now, I'm thinking of (DPS casters): MIG: Max (damage, damage, damage, for the DPS casters) CON: Min to 10 (but no more than 10, DPS caster) DEX: 10 or higher (depending on available points, I like the reflex saves and the increased reaction speed, for DPS caster) PER: Min or low (for a caster that is doing DPS at least) INT: Max (AOE, duration, casters) RES: Min to 10 (not no more, I do like to keep some concentration & will saves) I generally use race & package to mitigate a stat a bit, I'm ok with 17~18 for a max stat to avoid having a 3 or 5 in another stat. In casual play, anyways. These casters will have a mix of Lore and Athletics (combat fatigue...). The Lore is to be able to use scrolls to mitigate end-game casting battles and running out of good spells and being stuck in an area with very few rests left. And thinking of (TANK casters): MIG: Low to 10 (not important for tanking). CON: Low to 10 (not really important for a lot of the game, oddly enough, for any character it seems, at least in casual). DEX: low to 10 (I kind of like keeping some reflex saves on tanks, it helps with AOE and general conditions). PER: High to max (Deflection & reflex combined, it's good to have on the tank). INT: Mid-level to high (These tanks still have AOE stuff, so having more AOE and duration is good, also higher Will saves are good for tanks, but not maxing this). RES: Max (deflection, concentration and will save, it's pretty much worth going all the way on for a tank). In general, for talents, I'm thinking of a few unconventional things. I was considering for the tanks, having Body Control (help versus sickened, weakened, petrified, paralyzed, etc) and Mental Fortress (to help with charm, confused, dominated, frightened and terrified). Playing through the game, the only things that hurt my tanks seemed to be those kinds of effects, where stats were dropped, or they were confused and walked off, etc. Sure, I lose out on some Deflection or utility stuff, or a class talent, and maybe the bonuses these grants are pretty much not worth it, but I don't quite know yet, looking for thoughts on this. For the DPS characters, I'm strongly considering using Ghost Hunter & Sanctifier. It may be a waste compared to some other talents, but I find that early game, and late/end-game, the shades, phantoms, etc, are such a pain in the butt, so having more damage in general against them seems good, since I cannot use enchant on my spells to make my spells do this stuff. Alternatively, enchant some reach or ranged weapons to do this job and save spells. Or, find that spells kill them anyways fast due to their resistances to fire and stuff being lower. Need thoughts on this, might not be as important for casters with a strong hatred for shades, phantoms and spectres. From there, the tanks will have maximum Athletics, any minor points will go to Survival for consumables (I like ale, super helpful all through the game). And the DPS characters, one will have maximum mechanics for lock picking and disarming of traps (and will mix with a racial and/or package bonus to get it higher earlier). One DPS character will have high Stealth (I like sneaking up an dropping a spell to open the fight with nasty conditions or damage, then drawing them into tanks or chokes; also useful to steal in some situations in the game). The rest will have Athletics and/or Lore for scrolls and combat fatigue. Very best,

Heya, Just a thought, but as you get past level 9 or so, those early spells become per encounter, instead of requiring you to rest. It makes those early spells become spammable in a lot of areas mid and late game, where you end up with 5 or 6 battles per map, small scale battles, where you are not wanting to blast your best spells for easy trash mobs, but it's really nice to have a truck-load of per encounter low level spells. At least, unless I'm mixing this up with a Wizard, someone will have to correct me here if I'm wrong. So those +spell talents early on, equate to more casting with less resting. And late game, those +spell talents equate to more casting per encounter. Just a thought! That means mid-game at level 9 (or late game depending on how fast you progress), you get things like Dancing Bolts (AOE lighting damage vs Reflex), Nature's Mark (AOE condition drain making them easier to hit and easier to effect with conditions), Nature's Vigor (minor heal and endurance buff that effects whole party), Sunbeam (AOE damage and blind), Vile Thorns (AOE damage and sickened condition), Winter Wind (Cone AOE, 50 damage, with a push effect); all become per encounter. And these are great spells even though they are level 1. They still have a lot of utility in the late game. So you're not always stuck with 1 or 2 really "good" spells. Granted, the +spell talents probably are not worth it, there are items that grant this. So some other talents can be very useful, like mental fortress. And if you're really tweaking your characters, as much as people might think Arms Bearer or Quick Switch is bad, getting more quick slots is kind of important in harder difficulties late game, where you want specialized weapons with +damage versus Vessels/Spirits, or versus Kith, etc. As much as it might be a waste, I think Mental Fortress, Body Control, etc can be useful. And on that note, there's actually nothing wrong with Ghost Hunter & Sanctifier late game, those stack with weapons with bonuses against vessels & spirits too. Makes for a much easier experience versus those shades, phantoms, spirits, etc, which are annoying fights for everyone, especially early and late game (seems mid game there are next to none). Very best,

Hey all, I was thinking of doing a casual replay through the game with a caster group, basically the characters we usually use as support and back-line, but rather, build a few of them through the main character and hires (I don't care for the characters in the game that you can meet and get to join you) for a party of 5 to 6. The goal to play through Hard. POTN is not friendly to "casual playing" for me at this time. But Hard is fun, while being casual. I like hordes of enemies (except enemy Druids packs!). I'm looking at the Chanter, Wizard and Priest. The beauty is, all characters can be made into decent enough DPS dealers via ranged attacks (not so much with melee DPS I find, unless doing Rogue, Fighter, Paladin, Barbarian, etc). And while some characters are better at DPS than others (Cipher, Rogue...) at range, via ranged or magic, I'm looking to make a little more "rounded" support characters maybe, that are fun and have utility, but also can be indirect damage dealers. I was doing a few tests with some level 7 hires, to see what could be expected by then, which is later game. While my fighters with Defender (and supporting improvement talents), Weapon & Shield and Superior Deflection can get into the 120+ Deflection area with high Perception & Resolve, I'm finding that a Chanter, Wizard and Priest with a high PER & RES build, along with supporting talents, and using their spells or chants to increase (even if indirectly, forcing -10 or -20 accuracy to targets is quite similar to increasing your Deflection if I recall correctly?), are achieving starting Deflections in the mid-80's with equipment. So significantly less. Granted, the Wizard can bolster this significantly instantly but only for a short time. Chanters can be in the mid-90's and just over 100, with their songs and other abilities through dropping enemy accuracy. Priests just have so much utility with heals and buffs that the loss in Deflection can be made up, in a way, with a heal here and there. All of these characters, however, also have one thing in common and that's that while they can be built to be off-tanks (a wall of off-tanks), with a lot of defensive properties, they can all have offensive abilities that are AOE or summons. So an off-tank Chanter with Frighten & Rime & Frost, summoning Phantoms and/or Ogres and dropping Paralyzing cones. Alternatively, the Movement & Will & Fort songs with Paralyzing cones, because it gets to that invocation fast, and two of these doing massive paralyzing zones back to back is just super destructive and tanky (two Chanters doing this with alternating first phrase songs, with Paralyzing cones). Maybe an off-tank Wizard, with Chill Fog, Bewildering Spec, Blackened Sight, Slicken, Displaced Image, Confusion, and then a nice Fireball, Fan of Flames, Noxious Burst, etc. Nearly too many to name honestly. Condition off-tank, with AOE DPS. One of these maybe. And then a straight offensive Wizard too, built around DPS and not just the support stuff. Finally a Priest, with Armor of Faith, Divine Terror, Withdraw, Repulsing Seal, Instill Doubt, Pillar, CoP, with Pillar of Fire & Cleansing Flame. Also a condition off-tank, with AOE stuff, but also some heals and support stuff. Only one though. That's 5 characters if I do two chanters, two wizards (one off-tank, one AOE DPS), and one Priest. I'm thinking to round it out, either a Ciper with high Mechanics for locks & traps. Or just try to do a 5 man party. If I had to add one more character, it would be something DPS oriented. Anyone done something like this? I know it's low on overall average damage output. I'm curious if it will manage through normal/hard, casually playing, with a bunch of basically support characters. Just looking for another experience beyond a min/max tank + ranged DPS party that I've already done that just walks through the game in essentially auto-attack mode and wins each fight no problem. My main concern is late game and the end-game, where they will be hit with a lot of afflictions, conditions, and high damage attacks. I'm not sure how they will perform there. And of course, I'm not sure how it will fare against the last battle. Thoughts on making it work? Thoughts on why it won't work and I'm wasting my time? ********** Either that, or I'm considering a DPS Barbarian as Main character, along with 2 chanters & 3 wizards (chanters as off-tanks with support songs & summons; wizards with all DPS setup and a few condition spells to support if tanks are overwhelmed). ********** Very best,

Heya, The Phantom is infinitely better in every way than the Skeletons. The Phantom lives longer, hits harder, does more. The Skeletons, I find, just die and fall down and do nothing. I still used the Phantom in the end game content. They're that good still. They still help you take down ugly stuff and tank a little. Skeletons do nothing but get in the way, then die. Later, Wurms are your next best summon in terms of damage. They shoot little firebolts at range, so they can do great damage on a target. But, they're easy to kill. They die real fast when they start getting attacked, so they're not going to tank or take much from you, but they are great when you drop them and start focus-firing on a specific enemy to dispatch something (think priests, vessels, etc). After that, the Ogre. Takes a lot, deals a lot. Chanters are great summoners. They're not a pure summoner. You have to put it into context. Your summons are actually quite powerful, if you consider that you're chanting for free, the whole time you're dealing damage or tanking, and then you get a summon to add to that. You get 2 songs at one time for up to 4 effects, followed by your own attacks (or tanking), and a summon, all together in one character. It's a very good support DPS or off-Tank. Depending on how you start fights, your summons come quickly if you cycle first and second phrase chants. I often dropped my summons (again I use Phantoms even in late game, they're still good!). Definitely not post-fight. If you only sing your highest level songs and produce your highest level summon, then yes, it will be late fight. But if you manage your early phrases and early summons that are still good, you will be happy. I found I was super happy with the Phantom the whole game, and the Paralyzed for my 2nd level Invocation. Those two things, with a Chanter that does ranged DPS, or is the Off-Tank is fantastic. Very best,

Heya, Having just played a Druid through the game, who was a ranged character (bows/guns) but mostly spent the game opening with a spell and casting a 2nd or 3rd spell, at best, between attacks, I wouldn't bother doing a full spec of talents on ranged stuff. Instead, support other things with your selections. I went with marksman and gunner. I feel now that I wasted those two talents because while I did take a lot of shots with an arqeubus, it wasn't such a big deal, compared to wanting to use some of my big AOE spells more. Might gives you more damage and more healing. Big deal there. I didn't run a Priest. Healing is super useful in harder difficulties. Early game on easy/norm you could play with zero heals practically. Even in hard with good micro-management you can get by with no heals with a well crafted group. But otherwise, if you're casually playing, heals are pretty nice to avoid a re-load. And a Druid gives you that. So high Might is great there. Plus it's usually AOE, so INT is important there too. INT gives you higher durations and more area of effect. It's worth it. You don't need DEX. The speed increase is not much and not worth losing an attribute over. You'll find might far more useful over the course of the game. You'll find higher INT more important over the course of the game. Any character can shoot a bow. But only characters with spells (or a high Lore) can drop amazing spells. So you might want to ensure you support your spell casting and let non-casters worry about shooting stuff with their talents. Very best,

Heya, I used all the traps I disarmed in the game with a rogue with high mechanics. Was great fun and very useful. Very good way to "open the fight" so to speak. Basically I would scout ahead in stealth and find a mob. Once I found the mob, I would choose a choke point with my tank. Then I would put a trap a little before the tank where the choke point is. I would then position my group. I would then use my rogue with a ranged weapon to attack the mob and then run behind my tank. The mob would then pull towards my choke point, walk right into the trap, boom, and then the tank would entangle them. I loved the noxious, boil, etc traps. Basically the cloud or sprays. Didn't care for the dart or arrow or missile types. Very best,

Heya, I think you're wanting the classic Rogue to from the past to be injected in this new approach to this style of AD&D game. I agree to a point, but at the same time, it's clear the developers are following more closely to the newest form of the game where there's a lot more crossover and shared things, and less ultra-specialization going on. For example, in this game, everyone can get Stealth and pump it high and be sneaky. Everyone can push mechanics to be high, and lockpick and use traps and stuff. But only the Rogue has the class-specific abilities (mostly attacks or evasion). I happen to really like that other classes can be the lock-pickers or stealth characters. It means I'm not forced to have a rogue around just for interesting things in locked chests or doors. I would look more at what the Rogue actually has that is unique to the Rogue in the current PoE. The Rogue abilities that are unique are mostly attack types that blind or cripple, or have some kind of evasion. Granted, there's not a lot of them, and you're very correct that they're mostly per rest which is annoying (then again, blind and hobble with 4+ attacks at per encounter is pretty powerful with a ranged weapon). I agree that it would be more interesting to have more stealth based options or evasion options, but then the Rogue would be less reliant on a Defender of sorts and the newer games of D&D focus on that more, where the party has to have roles, and not just super-characters that handle everything. Very best,

Heya, I think this would be a good thing too. Especially for re-playability. I often like to replay things and either do it at an easier level, to increase speed, just for fun and casual play. Or, harder, to slow it down and make it more meaningful and stretch it out over time to enjoy the game for weeks on end, doing it from a strategic stand point, or a weird build, or solo even. Gives you the best of both worlds. I definitely like the idea of being able to increase number of mobs in encounters, without increasing their stats, significantly more. Fighting a mob of 20+ skeletons, fanatics, paladins, etc, in various places would be intense. Adding superior stats would just make it even more intense if you wanted that. Very best,

Heya, But in doing so, it's just going the direction more of the older Infinity games, where you could build a necromancer. Pillars is a different game. Less importance is placed on specifics of a starting character, and rather how you develop them changes it. For example, in the past (when you could build a Necromancer and play that way), you couldn't wear plate armor and cast, and you couldn't be a caster and have low intelligence, but now you can do a lot of this without the word "necromancer" above your character. In PoE, the necromancer is available, if you simply look at what's there and use it specifically, limit yourself to something, and you'll see it's there: Chanter. Summons undead stuff (phantoms, skeletons, etc). Auras that frighten and lower enemy stats or drain their energy. Spells that unleash magical power and paralyze or push things around. This screams "necromancer" to me. It's more your imagination, or the need to see the word necromancer than anything, but it's totally in the game. Very best,

Heya, I got PoE off Steam just this week and played it immediately. So far, no bugs that I've noticed, nothing weird, everything through the game has been pretty much as it was supposed to be that I can tell. I'm not having any weird problems or mishaps with anything. So from reading stuff in the past, I'd say the game is very playable and good to go. From here, it's mostly just going to be added stuff, balancing, way less "fixing" and if nothing, more expansion type stuff. I'd say the game is fairly polished at this point and ready to go. Very best,

Heya, To me, to improve on immersion requires a little more scripting so I'll expand on that, but I think it's totally do-able. There are a few things I'd like to see added or increased, and a few things to decrease as well. 1. The game is 99% combat oriented. While this isn't a bad thing, I think it would be more immersing if there were more options to get through a situation without combat. Just like how there are a few encounters in the game that you can avoid combat with, by talking through it (the Ogre, Incantha, etc). While I'm not saying every encounter should have the ability to "talk your way" through it, it would be interesting to have more options other than straight up combat and if the options were based on the part, and not just your main character's stats, that would make it a little more interesting. And you don't need new stats or anything to make this work. Simply associate them, just like how the game already does. If you are a mighty character, you would have more "might" displays in dialogue to get you through and your success depends on how much might you have (maybe make it a roll vs a DC, so that you don't auto-succeed dialogue options just because you min/maxed to might 23 early on, you know, but maybe make that roll easier for someone with might 23). Like wise, more dialogue options based on the skills, like Lore, Mechanics, Survival, etc. There's a ton of potential options here available that would be more interesting in the long term of the game, so that you can play the game immersed in a character that isn't just focused on combat in some way, or tanking in some way. Heaven knows few are "balanced" with a bunch of 12's and 14's for stats! But it would be more interesting if there were more dialogue and puzzle solving situations, where the stats could be more useful and not a means to build a tank or combat oriented character. 2. If the characters chattered amongst themselves more, that would be good. This happens in a lot of RPG's these days, even the old Baldur's Gate series and all. When the characters chatter and strike up dialogue here and there, it's interesting, and helps the party seem like they are a band and not just silent characters who do what you tell them to do. This is a simple fix because you just add script & sound options that trigger during non-combat moments, and at scenarios. 3. Trinkets, odds & ends, pets, etc. They're already in the game! But they don't do anything nor display any where. What's the point of collecting pets in the game, if they just take up inventory space. It would be neat if they showed up in non-combat areas and hung around the party. We all have these cats for example. It would be interesting to have these pets actually show up and to be able to interact with them a little bit (nothing over the top, just the option to pet or feed, etc, maybe a few fun side quests that are meaningless but interesting; that could be scripted into existing locations in the game). 4. Maps with lots of NPC's should be more interactive. More interesting things to find when "scouting." People should have random dialog. Instead of scripted dialog with soul stuff, there should be a few more that are actually interactive. For example, there's tons of support names on NPC's, and it would be interesting to use them for something. Make them matter a little more. Give people a reason to want to talk to them to see what they can find out (even if it's just dialog, if not, maybe a we more scripting to allow for very uneventful side quests so that you can build reputation and play more with characters that way). More places to go, in a city, too would be interesting. Not just 1 or 2 houses with names. But random estates, houses, markets, etc. Opportunities to simply explore and find interesting things that correspond. Also, interesting things for rogues (wink wink). 5. Now for combat, to make it more interesting and less of just a chore (lets face it, at a certain point, especially if you're somewhat skilled at how the game and engine works for combat, combat becomes a joke and you have to crank up difficulty to make it at all interesting), it should be a little more variable. There's few dangerous foes early on. And even then, it's too easy to just tank and range nuke nearly everything in the game. It would be more interesting to have more variety of foe classes. I'm not against having a room of undead, but a few more caster type characters and some behavior scripting to make the fighters more interested in attempting to go after who deals the most damage (within reason of course) so that you can't just choke-block-tank an area and nuke from behind as simply. If the enemy casted more interesting spells at you, it would change things up. For example, your tanks can take on everything, but what if the enemies hit them with things that really effected their Will or Reflex saves more often and not just focusing on Deflection for the majority of things? And on that note, it would be more interesting if tank-oriented characters had more abilities to control the crowd, other than knock down and/or other things like pulls. Granted, now we're getting into MMO level stuff, so I won't get too much into it. But basically it would be more interesting to have more variable combats. I mean, I can camp in a cemetery with active undead and it's no problem. You can camp within eye-sight of a Dragon, and it's no big deal. I feel like I should fear some combats, rather than just look at them as kind of chores to do before I get to get back to the script and story to figure out what's going on. I guess I'm looking for a way to make the combat matter and not just be something that must always happen before every major thing in the game. Don't get me wrong, I love a good fight. I also like meaningless fights here and there just to show off power, but it would be interesting to actually fear a fight and have to think about it, and not just pre-buff and walk in and do it like it's nothing. Surprise fights would be more interesting making you care more about placement and buffs ALL the time, and not just when you know it's coming. Would also stress more balanced characters too for people who are more interested in that. 6. User/community content production would be a big deal to me. Being able to have mods/maps to expand the game. I know it may be very difficult, but this would be key to a longer immersive game. Imagine if it were like Neverwinter Nights and you could download a new "mission" series and nearly play a whole new campaign? That would be really cool and inspire you to want to develop a character more. It also gives the user the opportunity to tell the story and make missions too. I know this is taking things to a different level, but this would be superb to have community production as an option. Very best,

Heya, I have a few caster builds that I've played and ultimately Intelligence is useful for a few things to magic casters, but it depends on what you're casting. For example, to a Priest or Druid, Intelligence is pretty much required to increase duration of a lot of spells and increase area of effect. The same can be true to a Wizard's spells if they fit those two categories. But if your Wizard, or whatever character, is casting mostly single target attack spells, then Intelligence isn't so much of a benefit to them, and that's where Might is more critical (to me at least) to make the most of those singular attacks. And that's where Dexterity can become very useful to increase speed (especially if you're wearing high recovery armor like plate). Alternatively, you have to look at the defenses they grant. Will is important later in the game I find. But Reflex is super important all the time I find because when you set off a lot of traps, or when spells are slung at you, a lot of them are versus Reflexes. Now, if you're a Wizard who wears plate and tanks and drops spells at the front line (hey, it's actually do-able), you'd want high Dex to simply use your own Reflex saves, and a little Int to increase the AOE area, and of course a ton of Resolve. Very best,