Zekram Bogg

I . . . just, why? Why is MP so critical for a purchase for people in this type of genre? I mean, I really don't see the appeal. PoE is a story-driven, character interaction focused CRPG. What possible benefit would there be to adding Multiplayer, and how would it even work considering the nature of the Companion characters and battle system? I mean, what would MP PoE look like? I hop into someone else's world, where my PC, Eder, Aloth, Durance, Sagani, and Kana team up with another person's PC, Eder, Aloth, Durance, Grieving Mother, and Hiravias so we can double team Xaurip mobs in Caed Nua? OK, setting aside the fact that we've now got a bunch of doubled clone characters - how does the battle system work in real-time online? When I pause to issue commands am I on a timer? It pauses the other player's game too, right? How many more enemies do we have to add to fights to make them not totally steam-rollable with 2 different party's on them at once? 4 times as many enemies? Or is it just an arena mode so I can take my level 12 team of heroes against your level 12 team of heroes? Like, that's not even that bad of an idea if there were to be PoE MP, but is that REALLY so appealing an idea that it becomes a make or break decision on whether or not to purchase the game? I just really don't understand the "MP or no purchase" mentality I guess. Like, do you need MP in Telltale Adventure games too?

After looking at both Luckmann's post here and his original huge post of balance change stuff from April, I have to say I agree with pretty much everything this man's saying, and if this were a council meeting, would second his motions and suggest the rest of the board adopt them in toto. However this is not such a council meeting, alas. I'll have to settle for signing up for the Luckmann Newsletter of PoE Griping. I think the idea that constitution could add an armor penalty modifier is great actually. Since Might is now relegated to the idea of "nebulous power of the will" rather than sheer burst muscle capability as Strength would be in most RPGs, it really leaves Constitution as the only attribute that conceptually governs physical strength. Considering CON kind of sucks at representing this idea currently, it really does need more of an oomph, and having high Con characters being able to move more freely in armor fits rather well. That said, if we're looking at alternate modifiers to the game that could be added to various Attribute scores (not just Con), here are some things that aren't covered by the current attribute system to consider (some were covered in earlier versions of the game). - Range of attack modifiers - I for one am down with increasing or decreasing the range due to base stats. Perception makes the most sense, then Intelligence, but both of these Attributes are already pretty beefy and useful, especially if PER is going to start affecting Accuracy again. - Movement Speed Modifiers - I'm surprised that there are no modifiers on in battle movement speed to be honest. It would make a lot of sense if a high Dex character could just move faster than a low Dex character. Even if it were a +/- 0.2 Move Speed Modifier per point, that'd mean your 15 Dex character would have a noticeable speed increase over an average Dex character at 10, and could outpace them in a chase scenario. Which will be very important I'd think once Individual stealth is in the game. - Disengagement Defense Modifiers - Another possibility for CON buffing instead of Armor Penalty, what if a high CON character just got a much higher Disengagement Defense bonus? Like a +/- 1 point per CON. So you could gain an advantage for CON by being able to move around a battle a bit more freely? This would probably also need to be buffed by another Attribute, like Resolve too, so a High CON, HIGH Resolve character could potentially move around a battlefield a lot more freely than the average, and dumping both stats would mean even picking Talents or Gear that raise Disengagement defense would only bring them up to par. - Range or actual Fog of War clearing - I'm a fan of games where each Stat/Attribute has an OBVIOUS in-game effect so you can know that altering it works in some concrete way. I'm rather surprised that no one is considering the size of the player's Fog of War Clear bubble as an effect that could be altered by PER or INT as well. All that said, the big question I'm having right now is this . . . if PER is going to affect Accuracy again in 2.0, potentially at a 1 point per PER rate, then is MGT going to affect Interrupt as proposed in Luckmann's Attribute System of Solidarity (heretofore referred to as LASS)? It seems like it's going to kind of have to, because if PER is going to get the Accuracy buff, then that Interrupt buff has to go somewhere else lest PER become way too strong a stat (as many in this thread are theorizing it will be).

I thought the guy riling people up at the front of Defiance Bay and who acts as an informal tour guide for newbs mentioned Hadret House as the home of Dunryd Row in Brackenbury? Side note: I wish that guy and that crowd would go away after you get further along in one of the Defiance Bay faction quests. It just bugs me that he's ALWAYS there in the same spot with the same crowd of people, riling them up in the same way. I mean, with the actors in Copperlane it makes sense - there's only the one ampitheater for them to perform in and all, but at least they're always doing different plays (and it's amusing to hear your party comment on the plays if you stick around to watch them). But that guy riling up the crowd in that exact spot feels a bit too artificial to me. We should be seeing him popping up in different parts of the district on different loads, riling up different crowds at least.

Not only that, but Durance gives a big speech when you first meet him about how he's beyond all the petty politics of the world, and is just going to follow the player because he thinks it's what his goddess wants of him. He has a whole "I don't care about your race, sex, or politics" thing he says, and is very adamant about it. I mean, Durance is adamant about EVERYTHING, so no surprise there, but he seemed especially adamant about this part.

The easiest analogue for Raedric in my mind is Stannis Baratheon from ASOIAF/Game of Thrones. They're both very lawfully minded characters who will neither exempt themselves from the law nor anyone else, in part because they feel justified in whatever it is they do because they include themselves in the category of "MUST follow the letter of the law". It means they're highly unyielding characters who, when circumstances don't go their way for too long, tend to break rather bend and adapt. You can totally see that with Raedric. Everything went to **** after Waidwen got blown up and he tried a bunch of things and absolutely nothing worked, so now he's in broken "kill everything until this nightmare ends" mode. But he IS honest about it. That's what people thinking Raedric supporters are evil aren't weighing as heavily I think. It's that fundamental honesty of the situation. Raedric's a definite detriment to Gilded Vale, for sure, but Kolsc is constantly lying to the player, the people around him, and using them toward his own power-hungry ends. There's so much manipulation there that I tend to think people who support Raedric are doing so mostly because at least the despot deals squarely with them. An honest **** being better than a dishonest one and all that, even if the dishonest one is probably the better choice in the long run. Also, I think there's a game mechanics inspired backwards justification going on here too. I know when I first started out, I tried taking on Raedric a few times and just couldn't do it, even on normal difficulty. That party around him is just too high level, well equipped, and well composed for when you can get to Raedric early on, and Kolsc is so much easier to take down and finish the quest. In order to take on Raedric you almost certainly have to leave and come back to him later on when you're better equipped and have some more levels under your belt. Since that's the case, it does seem odd that we can't imprison either Raedric or Kolsc in the dungeons of Caed Nua. I mean, there's really no way to beat Raedric until you've at least obtained ownership of Caed Nua in a progression, so it's strange that he's not "prisonerable" in my mind. Hell, he'd seem a prime candidate for a person you'd WANT to imprison - the rightful heir to a province that needs some time in a dungeon to cool off and reflect. Maybe some time in a dungeon would give the guy some perspective on what he's actually done rather than either feeling continually justified in his choices or dying rightfully thinking it was all a plot from a power-hungry relative. I'd even nominate that if you went down that path, Raedric would make a fine candidate for a party member. If you break him down in a dungeon for a while, he could see that he has to redeem himself for what he's done, and to actually pursue the causes for Waidwen's Legacy with the player, since most people who get to know the new Watcher in town do eventually seem to realize that the PC is probably the person best on the path to actually solving the Legacy more than most. Other thoughts on Raedric: 1. Since there's obviously an animation of Raedric sitting in a throne, this should be cannibalized so the player can sit on the throne of Caed Nua. 2. I love that if you side with him you can mention later on in the Blood Legacy quest that you "know a certain noble who's recently single". Dark humor at it's finest.

I actually agree with this post, but I also think that having new skills could enhance the game. The only thing is to have skills that make sense and are both useful and interesting. I wouldn't want them to include new skills unless those skills added something substantial to the game. Otherwise, just put the effort into doing something else in x-pacs and sequels. Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm thinking too ultimately. I mean, the skills that are all in the game have plenty of use (survival feels like it could have a more active effect sometimes but as a passive skill it CAN be very useful if you plan it right, especially for fighters) and they cover almost all of the bases I can generally think of, but I'm also trying to think long term here too. If there are going to be four expansions raising the level cap by two levels each, and each level gives you 6 skill points that's 4x2x6=48 more skill points per character by the end of a full playthrough down the road. While the costs of the skills to rank up do get quadratically higher, it's still going to mean that by level 20, most every character's going to either be having sixes - sevens all around or max out a couple of their skills. While some skills certainly have value to be maxed out for one or two characters - you're always going to want to have one person with maxed mechanics, and one scout with rank 10 stealth will always be handy - often you just don't need to max a lot of them for the most part, especially with Athletics hitting diminishing returns very quickly. Having one or two new skills will bring back more of the deliberate character building choice into the picture - do you specialize this character, or make them a generalist all around? But yes, whatever skills that might be added would have to bring some true utility or allow for playing the game in a new way or with a new angle, or why add them at all? So the question becomes, what's a good skill to add to PoE in addition to what's already here - Stealth, Athletics, Lore, Mechanics, and Survival - and which isn't already a mechanic based on primary stats - like concentration or conversation modifiers that effectively account for most "social skills"? Since it's a CRPG of a very tabletop mold, I'm trying to think of what's in your standard tabletop game that's not represented in PoE too. So far, all I've really got is Appraisal. It's a bit weak perhaps, but it could be multi-functional for any character type and useful if it did multiple things like I was describing above. Healing/First Aid would be a good skill to have, but it's already a Talent (though I think it would probably be better served as a skill that uses a limited use item). There aren't mounts, so anything like Animal Handling or Ride is out. Crafting would be cool, but most of what could be crafted as a skill is already available freely in the game for the most part, and so would only make sense to be added literally to create weapons or armor. Grappling could be a skill. But that would involve adding some kind of complicated grappling combat sub-system and would be entirely dependent on that (in addition to maybe modifying climbing interactions). If someone had an idea on how that could work I'd be down to hear it. I'd have to think of a way for that to work for a while. There could be a skill that kind of functions as a general modifier to the engagement system - Tactics. It could raise disengagement defense and add extra disengagement attacks for enemies that disengage as you raise it generally, and allow for enhanced awareness on enemy spell aiming and movement pathing outside of combat (when in search mode you could see little directional arrows coming out of wandering enemies showing you where they're headed before they move there). I dunno, that's sort of a nebulous add on idea. I dunno. I feel like there's at least one potentially good skill out there, and want to see if anyone else has an idea.

It's no big deal, thanks for your quick reply!

So I've been thinking of starting a few threads about stuff the community would like to see in the upcoming expansions/DLCs going forward under different various topics. I think it's safe to assume we're going to be seeing 4 DLC's/Expansions at a minimum, due to the level increase increment stated in the White March Part 1. If it's raising the cap by 2 to 14, it can probably be expected that Part 2 will raise it to 16, and I doubt we'll see a stop there and assume that the final level cap will be at 20. So that's a lot of content coming down the pipe, and plenty of time to suggest/opine/discuss stuff we might like to see added to the game now that we've had some time with it. So . . . NEW SKILLS! One of the things I'm especially wondering about is how the Skill system is going to stay balanced as the higher levels come in, especially since the current soft cap of 10 levels in any skill is more than enough for anything you could want to use that skill for. I mean, if you max out Mechanics at 10, while there may be some new level 10 traps and locks here and there, are they really going to be adding level 11 and 12 locks and traps? While Lore going up makes more sense (for higher spell level scrolls), what's the real benefit for going higher than 10 in Athletics or Stealth. At those levels you're already way beyond the skill's average utility bonus. But you're still going to get six points for skills every level, and so it seems like every character is going to just max out all their skills by the time they reach level 20 once all 4 expansions are done . . . unless new skills are added. Adding new skills is really the only way I can foresee making the Skill system going forward into the higher levels stay relevant, so what are they going be? What do you want to see? What would make for a good skill in PoE that isn't already in the game that would match how the skill system in PoE works already (as in, there's both a definite Conversation possible effect AND a definite in-game mechanical effect, either passive or active)? For myself, the skill idea I've been mulling over is skill to affect the trading aspect of the game (not that you can't get enough money already, though I tend to think the in-game economy needs to get a bit of a rebalance to maybe make it tougher to get quite so much money as you can currently outside of quest rewards and potentially Stronghold taxes, and there DEFINITELY needs to be a system in place for merchants to clear their inventories since they pile up with the junk you sell them). Mostly because trade skills always feels very tabletop-style RPG to me. At the same time, since Perception doesn't seem to affect mechanical detection values (only conversation detection, whereas MEchanics affects ALL other detection values) a skill that ALSO makes some sense to raise there could also make sense. So I'm thinking something along the lines of Appraisal or Assessment might be a good idea for a skill. It could give a direct bonus to cash values (both buying and selling) when trading goods worth over 100 coppers (so it won't work to help raise values on a single sword, but it can on a decent set of armor or a fine or better weapon), and it will split off the detection of hidden caches from being related to Mechanics (which makes sense for detecting traps, but not necessarily anything else that's hidden) and possibly Stealthed enemies (if they're ever added to the game, which would be pretty cool if they were in my opinion). Now I have read from earlier Fallout related stuff that Mr. Sawyer doesn't like boring "Barter" skills that just give you a flat cash modifier. So I'm thinking Appraisal/Assessment could be related to a new, more active ability - Haggle. A per rest ability that allows the player to attempt to raise or lower the prices on a trade with a merchant based on a skill check: of the Appraisal skill. The idea being that when you make a trade with a merchant, rather than just buying the goods at the agreed upon price as normal, you can also try to haggle with them instead, and then the game will make a roll here - if it fails, the price you pay goes up rather than down by the potential modifier, if it succeeds you get your Appraisal modifier added to the transaction and if you critically succeed you get your modifier doubled. Haggling would be an alternate option to just buying and not back out-able (once you select it your stuck with the results), and like I said, you'd only get to use it a certain number of times per rest (based on the PC's Appraisal skill value). The total potential modifier amount would be affected by the whole party's total Appraisal skill (so there's a reason to potentially raise it for characters other than your PC). It would look something like this: Appraisal Rank 1 - 1 Haggle Attempt per rest at a 5% modifier, Detect Level 1 Hidden Objects/Creatures Appraisal Rank 2 - 1 Haggle Attempt per rest at a 10% modifier, Detect Level 2 Hidden Objects/Creatures Appraisal Rank 3 - 2 Haggle Attempts per rest at a 13% modifier, Detect Level 3 Hidden Objects/Creatures Appraisal Rank 4 - 2 Haggle Attempts per rest at a 16% modifier, Detect Level 4 Hidden Objects/Creatures Appraisal Rank 5 - 3 Haggle Attempts per rest at 19% modifier, Detect Level 5 Hidden Objects/Creatures Appraisal Rank 6 - 3 Haggle attempts per rest at 21% modifier, Detect Level 6 Hidden Objects/Creatures Appraisal Rank 7 - 4 Haggle Attempts per rest at 23% modifier, Detect Level 7 Hidden Objects/Creatures Appraisal Rank 8 - 4 Haggle Attempts per rest at 25% modifier, Detect Level 8 Hidden Objects/Creatures Appraisal Rank 9 - 5 Haggle Attempts per rest at 27% modifier, Detect Level 9 Hidden Objects/Creatures Appraisal Rank 10 - 5 Haggle Attempts per rest at 30% modifier, Detect Level 10 Hidden Objects/Creatures But then, that's just one idea for potential new skills, what are yours?

More like Paladin Josh Sawyer, from the Order of Balance. I really hope that breastplate becomes an item somewhere down the line. Yeah, while I'm sure people will actually play as Barbs with breastplates on and such, for the portrait, a big honkin' breastplate does not "Barbarian" yell. Also, I didn't realize that was supposed to be Sawyer. Neat!

So, after I saved the Vailian merchant from the Doemenals and they started their war against me, and after having dealt with hit squads coming from them for a while I decided to return the favor and wipe out the Doemenals at their mansion. I did so, killing everyone in Doemenal manor and then looted the place clean, except for the safe, due to this strange skill check requirement bug. Basically, I have a Rogue-like Priest of Skaen in my party, who has a Mechanics level of six, currently (I think he's sixth level, as he's a bit behind the rest of my seventh level party since he was recruited after my actual rogue died to a trap - playing on Triple Crown mode - Path of the Damned, Expert Mode, and Trial of Iron). The Skill check on the Doemenal safe is for level 7 Mechanics, or level 6 but with 7 lockpicks. I have 10 lockpicks currently possessed by my Rogue-like Priest, so this shouldn't be a problem, but whenever I try to pick the lock, it fails. I tried quitting and reloading in case it was some kind of weird issue on loading into that area that time, but upon reloading the problem persisted. This seems to be a bug, as I've picked other level 7 locks with lockpicks prior to this action. I don't know if the bug is a mislabeling of the Safe's skill check (i.e. that it's actually a level 8 skill check labeled as 7), or that there's just something broken here. I was able to disable the trap on the safe already however (I think it was an arrow trap). Steps to reproduce: 1. Create a character with Mechanics skill level 6 or get another character to Mechanics skill level 6. 2. Go to Doemenal Manor, and proceed to the 2nd floor (if hated by them, this may involve fighting). 3. On the second floor, to the east side of the manor, there is a safe, go into sneaking mode and disarm the trap on the safe. 4. Ensuring that you have more than seven lockpicks, but only a character with Mechanics level six, attempt to unlock the safe which is labeled as requiring 7 Mechanics Skill or 6 Mechanics skill and 7 Lockpicks. 5. Notice that despite meeting the 6 Mechanics Skill + 7 Lockpicks requirement, the lock refuses to open up. Screenshots attached.

Right. Prone just means "lying on the ground." If drakes and such were immune to Prone, that would preclude the image of a fighter leaping into the air and smashing them into the ground with a single blow, as well as elegant spells like Call to Slumber. That would make the game less awesome. If the price of being awesome is that I have to assume that Slicken coats a Drake's wings, making them unable to gain lift, and that makes the game even more awesome ... awesome. Well, then what's needed isn't a knockdown immunity for drakes, just new unique animations for certain ability scenarios. I mean, you just described something I now totally want in the game - leaping fighters bashing dragons into the ground! That said, ghosts should probably be immune to knockdown considering they're kind of always floating. I can buy physical attacks slowly dispersing their ectoplasmic forms just fine, but they're basically already masters of levitating. And in general, some enemies having certain immunities and particular weaknesses often not only makes sense in a "logical" way, but yeah, it also improves gameplay complexity and can make fights a LOT more interesting.

This was all in some earlier version of the game for sure. You can definitely tell because of the upgrades you can make to Brighthollow which are totally functionless in the release game would only make sense if these restrictions were in place, hence why they were originally made. I for one just think both systems need to be in the game, just as restricted stash access is in the game, and flipped on or off in the options menu. I mean, they already have like, 98% of the system in place to restrict enchantments/upgrades in the game. They just need to make them a set of conditions that can be accessed by the player, perhaps with a couple new UI buttons in some places (like one so when you camp there's a "cook" button next to "stash", "rest" and "cancel", and probably some unique access art for hearths in the game, forges and the like. If restricted enchanting/crafting were in place it would give so much more importance to certain choices in the game. For instance, which of the 3 main factions do you choose in Defiance Bay? Well, one of them has access to a huge impressive forge that probably means you can upgrade quality to max status, so there's a good reason to choose them in a mechanics sense rather than just a "I like these guys" sense. Similarly, if they restricted Build a Party member recruitment at inns so that you could only get one at any inn in the game with the exception of the Adventurer's hall in Defiance Bay, it'd give choosing them a lot more meaning too. In general I tend to find that restrictions bring a sense of meaning, removing restrictions is only good for convenience. I tend to think meaning is more important than convenience in an RPG centered around player choice, myself. Also, while on the subject of requests about enchanting . . . CAN WE PLEASE GET SOME MORE SHIELD ENCHANTMENTS???? I mean, three things: #1 - Shield Bashing is in the game, but so far as I have found, only occurs on one unique shield. Which is ridiculous. How in the world is it the case that a shield needs unique properties for me to shove it in some Xaurip's snout? #2 - These stick out like a sore thumb as something obviously not consistent with the rest of the enchanting system. #3 - In case there need to be some suggestions for "well what would you enchant a shield with, anyway?" here: - Absorbing (Damage Type) (Lesser/Greater) - Shield absorbs some small percentage of attacks from one of the elemental types as endurance for the wielder. - Reflecting (Damage Type) - Shield has a percent chance to reflect assigned damage type back at enemies. - Bashing (Damage Type) - All Bashing does base crush damage, but you can add a bash lash onto shields too, but this only applies to large shields. - Hurling (Damage Type) - Allows user to throw their shield at enemies as an impromptu attack once per combat, but only small/medium shields - Unique enchantments like "Charging" which absorb energy attack energy to grant more Cipher power or refresh an expired ability et cetera, or "Taunting" which makes the wielder of the shield higher as a target priority.

As far as I know, no. There's portraits, and a few people have made or are making voice replacers. On the Nexus there are a few mods that are more technical, a couple of personal balance shifts roughly hacked in, and a save state editor, and I think one person managed to make a way for people to look at and edit dialogue files a bit more easily. But aside from those things, there are no major mods due to the way the game's been constructed. Pre-rendered backgrounds made mostly in Maya and not with tilesets but unique art means only a seriously pro artist could possibly make new maps, and it seems you'd need to have a full version of Unity 4 and a strong working knowledge of programming to alter a lot of the core mechanics. Basically, if you have the skills to mod PoE in the more fundamental ways, you'd probably be better off just applying for a job at Obsidian and working on the game officially, and you're probably a person already busy making your own games anyway, so why mod it?

I feel like you don't really get it. This isn't an MMO, it's not an FPS, it's not a tactical simulation, it's not The Witcher, etc. I believe that the vast majority of people aren't playing this to "beat it", top the leaderboards, find the best race/class/talent tree/etc combo, snipe some guy in the head, or whatever. Maybe I'm wrong. It doesn't matter because even if they are, this isn't that kind of game. This isn't that kind of game. "Common sense" means all wizards studied in a white tower, all elves are archers from the forest, and there's no such thing as soul power. This isn't that kind of game. This is a computerized version of a table-top role-playing game. Let me say that again: This is a computerized version of a table-top role playing game. I'm not trying to be a pedantic jack-a**. Honestly, I'm not. I trying to suggest the correct mind set to you. No one is disagreeing that your ideas and assertions aren't correct in certain contexts. What we're saying is that this isn't one of those contexts. I could probably write a multi-page post explaining what the developers are trying to achieve, the target demographics, financial and marketing concerns, the historical development of the series and it's predecessors, the history of table top rpgs and subsequent evolution of crpgs, but neither I, you nor anyone else likely wants to read that. I certainly would rather play my estoc wielding barbarian instead. So, I'll just say this: This isn't that kind of game. Look, I'm coming from tabletop too, so it's not like I don't get the "purpose" behind this game. So let me put this another way: aside from money-making/marketing reasons, why do you think there are updates to table top rulesets? It's because sometimes certain ideas don't work, whether for balance reasons, or for the current ruleset not promoting the intended style of play that the game's writer's wanted. I get that there's a philosophy in PoE to allow total weapon use for all classes. That sure seems like something I've read from the devs online. Specifically Sawyer saying that (though I can't remember where I read it, to be fair). What I'm talking about here isn't about altering this philosophy, but just balance, pure and simple. Stilettos have a DR ignoring ability along with a fast attack speed that makes them particularly effective for the Carnage ability; I can see why that might be a balance problem. That is if, and I agree that this is an if here, the devs would agree that this may be an oversight/balance issue. I'm not sure of it myself even because even though I have rolled a Barb, I didn't use stilettos with him (I might now though). If the devs don't think it's an issue, then fine, it isn't one. But saying "you just don't get it man" because you disagree that it's a balance concern is pretty presumptive. If you think this is a game that doesn't want to stay balanced, then I'm afraid I'm not the one misunderstanding what type of game this is. Every decent game designer I've ever met, read, or listened to understands the importance of a balanced game, whether single player or multi-player. If this game didn't have a modicum of balance in mind, then every fighter should have unlimited knockdown attacks that have a 100% hit rate, friendly fire should be turned off, and you should be able to win any battle with your one magic spell "Greater Battle Winning".

OK, so this list is great and all, but there are a lot of ??? sections on it that I think I might be able to clear up. I've been going through the player VO files today, and after some comparative analysis of the different audio files from the personality sets I think I've figured out some more specificity on parts of the VO line list. Which I bring up because it might be a bit problematic if anyone wants the above list as an exact guide to making their own VO's for their characters (which is something I'm working on for myself right now), so I figured I'd help out and do a little clarification on some of the vaguer sections of the list if anyone wants to follow this up on their own at home with a mic and wants to strive for maximum accuracy (which I do for myself anyway). To be fair, these are in a couple of sections where you put up question marks primarily, and these audio files are certainly NOT clearly labeled with the related actions, so it's still a bit of guess work on my part based on the the context of the VOs themselves and from playing the game for a bit. But I think I have at least a few things figured out that add on to Rokem's earlier list. So . . . VO's 1-21, as far as I can tell, Rokem got all of these dead on the money. I do think VO lines 10-12 "Wounded" and 13-15 "Taking Hits/Damage" have more specific triggers than those listed though. Because later on in the VO lists, on lines 45-50 there are also a bunch of "taking hits" sounds. Near as I can figure, the 45-50 lines are specifically sounds that play when the character takes hits in melee engagement that aren't special attacks or critical attacks from enemies, and only from normal hits, while the 13-15"Taking Hits/Damage" are from either critical hits, or enemy special attacks/spells. I'm not sure whether or not the "wounded" VO's trigger on hit or when the player's HP/Endurance hits a certain threshold though. The big area on this list that needs more clarity are VO lines _0022 - _0029. They are NOT all Ally falls messages, or at least, not exactly. VO Lines _0022 - _0024 are I think, much more specifically when your ally actually DIES, or is maimed. These lines have a lot more urgency and worry in them (except for the Sinister voice set, who consistently has the opposite reaction from the other four sets) and more than one refer to death specifically. Line _0025 isn't an "Ally falls" line I think, but an "ally at low health" or possibly a "heal ally" line. They all sound less about an ally going down, and more that they need to rally. Lines _0026 - _0028 are "Ally KO'd" lines that play when allies get KO'd in combat, but not killed. There's a lot less urgency in these lines, and I hear these most often in combat when playing myself, while I'm pretty sure I only ever heard the 22-24 lines when I had a character die a couple of times (once Eder got maimed in my first game, and then I lost a Rogue I made to a nasty trap the other day on my current game). Line _0029 is definitely not an "Ally falls" callout. It's the "Can't get through Enemy defense" callout. I've heard this enough in-game to know for sure something was wrong with the above list when this specific callout wasn't on it. And oh my god, I wish there was some variation on this callout. You can hear it all the time on Path of the Damned. Line _0030 I think is more specifically for a Special Attack or Critical hit confirmation, like a Fighter knockdown, or rogue Blind attack. Perhaps even a critical hit kill. Line _0031 is more specifically for a special attack or spell miss/failure, not just a general attack miss. Lines 32 - 62 are accurate as far as I can tell. A couple of these lines are weird in that I don't think they'll actually play in game because I don't think the conditions to allow them to play exist in normal functionality any more. Specifically the "Leaving Party" line 42, since you remove group members through menus rather than through some kind of dialogue system and it automatically exchanges them while the game state is frozen, and line 44, "Retreating" since I don't know how one can actually trigger a "retreat" condition other than running away from an enemy until you get out of aggro range, and whenever that's happened in my game, I've never heard the line play. Line 32, "Encumbered" is a strange holdover that still has a play condition in the game, even though it's rare as hell, because you only ever trigger it if you forcibly try to add an inventory item to a party member whose personal inventory is filled, which since the game auto-stashes things when inventories are full, is a very rare event. I'm ALSO not sure what exactly lines 63-65 pertain to. They seem to be battle cries when the PC is in a kind of spirit form or hyper-mode. However, after looking at some of the generic_male_paladin files, I think these are exhortations. I can't confirm until I get a Paladin myself into a higher level, but this seems correct. 63 and 64 are team focused Exhortations, and I think 65 is very specifically the Paladin's Sworn Enemy yell. Lines _0066 - _0068 are definitely chant phrases, not just normal spell call outs. Likewise, _0069 - _0071 are Chanter invocations. All of these chanter VOs are all also very specifically the same words for all of the voice sets (the same with the earlier spells too, actually). I'm pretty sure these are Chant phrases as opposed to normal spell magic words primarily due to the male_noble voice set, which you can hear a stronger sense of rhythm in these cast VO's than in the earlier arcane spell VOs. 69-71 are all also very quick, so they seem to only really fit the shouts/invocation commands. I have no idea what Line _0072 is more specifically other than "long spell" either. It might be the longer chant phrases maybe? Oh, and fun little thing I noticed: the sinister sets (both male and female) have an extra 73rd line compared to the other sets which stop at 72. It's of them groaning/sighing in disdain, which might be a little hidden VO for clicking on them repeatedly maybe? Anyway, hope this helps anyone else who might be thinking of making their own VO's for the game!

Weapon types in general, sure, but I think there's a balance argument to be made here on weapon size VERSUS speed and the carnage ability of Barbarians specifically. Carnage potentially hits enemies in, I think, a radius outward from the Barb's selected target, yes? Smaller weapons generally attack a lot faster than larger ones, yes? With small stilettos wielded in each hand, and the same RANGE on carnage as compared to using a two-handed greatsword let's say, means carnage will constantly be ticking on as many enemies as a the greatsword at far faster a rate. Since Carnage only does piecemeal damage compared to a main attack no matter what the original damage really is, it's more beneficial for it to work to hit more often than it is to hit harder. And if small weapons ALREADY have a speed advantage - and they do - then having the same carnage range AND the speed advantage is just a bit too much, balance-wise, because you now have a build superior to all others. It's just a bit over-powered compered to the larger weapons, which will hit harder, but not wide enough for carnage to be advantageous, comparatively. Good (meta)game design is a lot about managing player behavior, and a goof rule of thumb is to always assume that most players will take the path of least resistance on the road to maximizing their potential, mechanically. So if Stiletto Barbs are obviously dominant here, then everyone maximizing efficiency (which is usually a majority of players) is going to feel compelled to play stiletto-barb, regardless of whether or not they truly want to. So basically, this hippy dippy "all weapons for everyone" philosophy is breaking in this instance for this particular class ability, and actually providing less perceived flexibility rather than more. It's an exception. It would make sense - for game balance reasons AND just obvious common sense physics ones - to tie carnage range to weapon size. I mean, if I'm swinging around a big old Poleaxe, I think it should have more potential range than a tiny poke-knife, right? This wouldn't even have to mean that you necessarily shrink the Carnage hit radius on small weapons all that much either. Rather, just go the opposite route, and raise the radius on the larger weapons. Then you get a system that makes sense, balances out well, and keeps the original "all weapons for everybody" philosophy in tact.

This is something I want too. I mean, there are some VOs I don't think I'd ever use because I think they're terrible - both Male/Female Mystic suck to my ears - so I can replace those easily enough, but after that it means we're left with no more custom voices to choose from. And if I want to roll a party of six custom toons, it'd be nice to have the option to give them all more unique voices. That said, I worry that the "drop in a VO set" dream may be impossible. Looking at what Justin Bell was saying in the thread linked to the first page of this thread, it seems that audio files all need to be named very specifically or the entire audio system freaks out and breaks. Hence why he advised creating new silent tracks and naming them exactly the same for someone who wanted to get rid of just the combat music in their game. While I don't like assuming, it does seem like such specificity of file organization in the audio system is going to make a "drop in VO" system a LOT tougher without hacking into the larger audio system the game runs with. Which probably means going out and getting Unity 4 at the minimum.

A direct relationship of weapon size to Carnage size (how is this measured? a Radius? a number of enemies?) would make all the sense in the world, balance wise. And frankly, I agree with the idea that carnage should probably not apply to pierce weapons. At least not without an animation of your Barb flailing about punching and kicking people while he also stabs them. The issue of DR penetration based on size of weapon ALSO makes a lot of sense too. I mean, in general, there isn't much variation on base weapon types in this game due to size, when there probably should be. I like all of OP's ideas and would subscribe to his newsletter.

Oh, so this became a stronghold discussion topic, then? I HAVE THOUGHTS!!!! Like most, yeah I think the Stronghold is a bit undercooked. It has a TON of potential, just isn't where it needs to be to feel like a truly interesting feature it could be in a few patches/Expansions. The main things I'd think would make the Stronghold involved enough to feel equitable with the rest of the game are: > A quest that allows for official recognition as a regional Thane BEFORE you can collect taxes and most other stronghold features other than just fixing up the place. After all, you get the Stronghold, so you essentially own the property by right of possession, but no one else in the world recognizes you as a lord to pay homage to necessarily. This could be the gating mechanic that allows for those uninterested in Stronghold stuff to just own the property and maybe even fix it up, but they won't get to delve into visitors or most attacks or even need hirelings or what-not unless they openly declare lordship over the outlying lands. This should be an opt-in sequence rather than an opt-out through ignoring the chiming of the Steward. This would essentially take the stronghold from the current fluff it is into a more advanced arena that would feel like it fits with the rest of the game's depth. > With the Census of local NPCs on your lands that you gain official recognition over, you now have to make decisions about the development of theses lands and of the people who reside there. Hence, King of Dragon Pass Strategic choices using the Encounter system already in the game. There need to be a lot of these for the game to draw from potentially (we're talking like, a minimum of a hundred potential decision scenarios) and they should occur about once every in-game week, but only after you get official lordship. > With lordship means you gain access to a deeper understanding of your outlying lands, and you can get immigrants and families that move onto them if you develop them or make pronouncements around them to draw people onto them. Again, tying into a Strategic choice system that would be necessary. > With lordship comes the potential of raising a small army to protect not just your stronghold, but the area surrounding it that's your domain. THIS is how you can stop potential stronghold attacks entirely, since, as it is, you can only get attacked without either setting up patrols to prevent it or counterattacking to remove the sources of harassment. This also would be decided via a King of Dragon Pass-like system. > Gaining land and entering into nobility means having to deal with political rivals. The decisions you make interact with values and attitudes with other nearby thayns, so you have to figure out a balancing act to make sure you don't piss off everyone enough to have them all attack you and take your stronghold away from you. > Tougher Stronghold battles that can have multiple phases or fronts, using the Encounter system to make strategic decisions where you can send hirelings/other party members to buy you time or use castle defensive advantages in between phases or on different fronts. Like, if I get attacked by an organized band, they might attack from both the eastern and western gate at the same time, so I have to send my party to deal with the forces at one of these locations at the potential chance for the other group to break through the defenses at the other side of the hold. If they can't get through the defense on the other side of the hold and I beat one force, the enemies could retreat. If they break through while I deal with the force More troop get through and I have to fight two groups - one in the courtyard outside the Keep, and one who holds up inside the keep and takes a better defensive position when I enter it. That kind of stuff. > Different results upon losing a stronghold battle. Primarily, you can have enemies attack and claim ownership of your Stronghold rather than them just damaging your buildings after pillaging. So the next time you return to Od Nua, you have it inhabited by a set of enemies of the type that took over the joint (and some prisoners in your dungeon will have joined their numbers). Other results would tie in to the KoDP strategy system - residents leaving your lands, their fields could be burnt down rather than just your buildings, residents revolting against your rule - and if your prestige gets too low after you become a thayn, rival thayns can attempt to revoke your thaynship. > WAY, WAY, more capturable prisoners. In general, there should be a larger system of pleading when a combat group gets down to their last man in the main game - INCLUDING THE PLAYER'S PARTY - so that taking out the majority of Kith in a lot of given groups results in the last guy standing being willing to yield rather than die. This should also include the player's party in certain instances, where certain NPC's can interrupt combat when you're down to your last party member and offer you clemency in exchange for giving in to whatever demands they may have (like forking over a bunch of money, or running off with a Companion character they kidnap, or a quest item they may desire et cetera) though this should mostly be a rare thing with the exception of City Guards in Defiance Bay, who, if you aggro and run afoul of, should be able to capture the PC and imprison them and your party for a time (unless you pay a bunch of gold to bribe them). This may seem a bit much, but it's just, if you create a system for more prisoner capture for the player, it'd make sense for a way for the NPCs to also capture the player. > The ability to imprison Raedric and/or Kolsc. > More stuff to do with your prisoners. Can get information out of them that can lead to new quests or hidden stashes on maps through either conversing with them and convincing them, or possibly torturing it out of them. Most should be able to be recruited into your hireling ranks through either sweet-talking them over many different sessions or through the lash (though you can also make the wrong choice and either break them through torture or show yourself as weak through talk), and there should be at least one potential party member you should be able to get out of capturing a prisoner. > NPC recruitment for your main hall beyond just an item shop guy: a Jester, a page, and head cook. The head cook will allow you to feast on a meal at the main hall (everyone sits at the dining tables and gets a free buff of one food item) the page just follows you around when you're on premises and can bring you any items in your Stronghold's treasury (essentially a walking version of your treasury), and the Jester just hangs out in the main hall and tells jokes. > Ability to assign duties to Companion NPCs (both the main companions and player created ones) when they hang out at your stronghold, rather than just adventures. With six primary duties that affect different aspects of your hold's management, each getting a boost or detriment based on a primary stat - Might: Guard Captain (reduces the numbers of attacking enemies on Invasions), Constitution: Night Watch Captain (reduces the chance of enemies attacking at all), Dex: Message Runner (reduces the time it takes to coordinate building operations and decisions between Lordly choices, and seriously, this kind of needs to be in there because even if the Steward can communicate with the Watcher psychically, it doesn't seem like she can do this with other people outside the hold), Perception: Patrol Captain (leads scouting missions outside the Hold, further reducing chance of attack), Int: Overseer (reduces time to coordinate building operations and lordly choice decisions), Resolve: Tax Collector (affects amount of taxes you receive on next tax collection). Companions on duties gain no bonus XP, but you get better Stronghold management refinement. > A place to put excess pets so they wander around my keep. At least one pet slot in Brighthollow's ground floor, one for the Bailey, and one for the ground floor of the Main Keep. > The ability to sit in that damn throne at will. I'm the lord of a keep. I should be able to sit on its throne! . . . and I that's about it. Now, I know like, a lot of this is probably probably untenable in the current game, even if it could get added in the expansions, but if they put a stronghold in a sequel, this is the kind of stuff I'm going to expect having had enough time to iron out the aspects of the feature in this game.

You can't help but not like this type of post ..you put so much effort into the point and I respect that But I don't agree with the general sentiment because you are ultimately doing the same thing that critics of Romance do that go the intellectual route. You are judging Romance in RL metrics and thats unfair. The moment someone says " Romance isn't believable " I know they are missing the reason people like Romance Honestly tell me one other thing in a game like DA:I that you judged on "believability "" ? Well I haven't played DA:I yet, so I really couldn't say, to be honest. It's not about believability for me though, it's complication with other mechanics and game tone in general. If romances have no effect on anything else in the game, then they feel like insignificant fan-fiction fluff. If they have too strong an effect, then they feel like requirements that lead to people half-heartedly doing them for in-game benefits. If they're too realistic in terms of restrictions and after effects then people who came by for a flight of fantasy get weirded out, and if they're too fantastic and unrestricted then you get people who find them immersion breaking. I'm not saying romance can't be done well in a game, or that it's not especially fitting in a game like PoE. Actually it's the exact opposite. I think the folks at Obsidian are probably one of the few crews of devs I'd trust to do a Romance feature correctly in a game. But that said, the multitude of potential complications such a feature brings with it just leads me to believe that not including the option was a rather rational and safe choice. Like I said, if Obsidian decides they have a way to do this feature properly, I'd be down to see what their take on it would be. I especially think it'd be a good feature to add considering the Stronghold, especially since I think the Stronghold could use a lot of expansion in terms of mechanics in general (and that I'd like to see way more capturable characters so I could still have a fighting character who's a lot less murdery, and lots of interesting King of Dragon Pass kind of decisions that being a newly minted lord would entail), and having a spouse at your house dovetails well into a better stronghold feature. So I'm nominally pro-romance, just not going to push it because I get why it's not in, and personally, there are other features I'd like to see in the game higher on my personal priority list. I'll leave the advocating to the more interested parties like yourself.

Back when I used to write about gaming issues a bit more professionally I wrote up a thing (no lost to the archives of the internet) about gaming romances after Dragon Age 2. The big issue I think with in-game RPG romances often falls into ethics of inclusion versus quantum believability. Or to put it in another way: the devs, when trying to implement romantic options have a player expectation pressure to make them as accessible to all characters of any possible gender/sex orientation, but this can often mean making weirdness with NPCs, especially on a level that tends to erase the theoretical agency of the NPC characters. It's all to easy to make everyone a Shrodinger's Bisexual essentially. Which is immersion breaking in a lot of cases, since theoretically, if you're romancing someone in the real world, they're not a neutral blank slate on their sexual orientation until I run into them with my charming self and convince them that I'm their best romantic interest in the world regardless of whatever sex I may be. When you get the Skyrim situation, where ANYONE is romance-able by ANYONE, then it just turns all the characters into total ciphers (and not the PoE psychic kind). While that path DOES allow for the maximum of player choice in terms of player control, it hurts the characterization quite a bit, in my opinion anyway. This issue is ameliorated in the later Bioware games by having most characters have more romantic agency by not being romantic options depending on the player's sex, so there's a solution to that issue. The other issue that then arrears it's ugly head then becomes about the gamification of romance that inevitably occurs. It always brings some controversy in it too. Because someone always takes offense that all the player has to do is repeat X Action to produce Y result, with Y being romance and/or sex. In the case of literal whoring around this is probably fine - since well, if the player goes to an in-game brothel and pays for sex then well, they usually get what they pay for. But in terms of romance it usually ends up (to use the parlance of our times) "problematic". To avoid that, the devs would need to create a system that seems spontaneous and is otherwise is invisible, even though no matter what, there's going to be some gamification of a romance system behind the scenes. It would have to be based on the player spending a lot of time with an NPC and getting to know them well enough through the time they spend together that romance seems both possible and ideally inevitable with them if you're making conversation (and in PoE's case Disposition) choices that are in tune with their character. It would have to be a subtle thing, and subtlety in games is pretty hard (doable, especially by the fine minds at Obsidian, but hard). Then there are the effects of romance on both character and mechanics. PoE is an especially interesting case if we're talking romance and sex options due to the world events going on in the game, namely the hollowborn. I mean consider a romance scenario where there's a system in place for the PC to romance a couple of their companions as possibilities. If I have, say, a human male PC and I romance say, Pallegina, and we have sex during a camp session or resting at an inn, can she become pregnant? I think at some point it's mentioned that Elves and Humans can't interbreed in PoE, so maybe that doesn't work because she's a Godlike. So maybe instead I have a human female PC and I romance Eder. Can my PC become pregnant then? If I wait 9 months of game time, can I give birth? How does the pregnancy affect my stats in battle? One camp would say there should be no effects because that's problematic, the other camp would say it's unrealistic if there are no mechanical detriments to being a frontline fighter taking hits on my pregnant PC self. Further on, if I give birth, can I die during the birthing process? PoE has a level of magic and tech that seems weird when it comes to pregnancy specifically, and I can't tell if birthing mortality rates would be higher or lower due to it, but the immediate assumption is probably that giving birth is more dangerous in this world than say, in a modern 1st-world country. Then there's the issue of hollowborn. Is my kid going to be hollowborn too? I mean, that's actually kind of cool in a meta way, since it could give me more incentive to try and stop this meta-physical plague haunting the land, but then how does that work, mechanically with all the other systems in the game? And with all of the time passing to allow for the gestation of a pregnancy shouldn't other game events progress while I wait for my kid to be born? I mean, it's not like the bad guys are going to just wait around for me to have my kid, right? - there's a timescale issue here that can be a bit more immersion breaking to consider, and let's not even get into the stuff that's related to just sex in an RPG system featuring character attributes - I really don't think there's a strong FATAL player base here (though I could be wrong on that, who knows?) Ultimately it feels like Obsidian made the right choice to not include Romance in PoE, if only because of all the complications it brings onto every other factor of the game. While I'm one of the folks who thinks romantic subplots can definitely add to an RPG experience, because if nothing else, Romance is often a key fixture of all other fiction out there and RPGs are just another form of fiction (albeit, a highly interactive form), they have to be done so well lest they become huge awkward distractions, and they tend to sow division amongst audiences. It's a much safer bet to simply not include them, in general. That said, if the folks at Obsidian figure out a system for romance they think would work, I'd definitely be down to see how it plays out. I trust them enough that if they felt like they could work through all the myriad issues a PoE romance would bring, they should go for it. Just not at the expense of anything else. I DO think it'd be kind of neat to have a spouse back at the stronghold raising your kid, and that you'd have to hire nannies or something if you wanted to go adventuring with your spouse from then on (or you could both go adventuring and leave the kid on it's own, giving them abandonment issues maybe) and this could be an interesting ending factor and even make the stronghold aspect more interesting (imagine if failing an attack on your stronghold led to enemies killing or kidnapping your child or spouse, that'd certainly make that aspect more involved), but again, it seems like a rather tertiary concern compared to just adding more content and coolness in general.

Can do!

I for one am definitely in the camp for more VO work, especially for general callouts during battle. For me, the big area where VO is needed is in battle chatter. I mean, the VO's for conversations are nice and all, and when you get a convo with VO it generally signifies, "hey, this is probably a more important conversation, player, you should probably pay attention". On the one hand, that's good because it tells me very quickly what the most important stuff to pay attention to is. On the other hand, that's a bit gamey and immersion breaking since it's often so abrupt and blunt, especially since the way the system obviously works on this conversations is MAIN DIALOGUE = has VO, ALTERABLE DIALOGUE DUE TO PLAYER CHOICE = no VO. Most of the truly unique stuff (but not all, it's really scattershot) you can say spurs VO-less reactions from NPCs. But the main area I would appreciate a lot more VO is definitely in fights. There just needs to be more variation. I've heard everything everyone has to say at this point and I'm not even done with the game (though that's also partly due to restarting a couple of times after I figured out the mechanics well enough to play on Triple Crown conditions - not solo, for the completion of my first progression). I've especially heard the "cannot get past this enemy's defenses" callout so often it's become annoyingly repetitive, especially since accuracy is tougher to raise than most other stats with my sword and board main PC. As far as I'm concerned though, a unique VO pack would be a waste. Just add bits of new VO with each expansion. I mean, this is going to be happening anyway (one assumes, anyway) since the expansions bring in new characters and such, and are going to be compatible with all of your current characters, so extra VO sessions that bring in new VO's during the expansion dev process seem like a natural fit. I am especially down with the idea of new VO sets for Player Created characters though with each expansion. I think that's pretty critical since there are only five per sex and there are WAY more possible variations on type than just those five. I mean, I like the concept of "attitudinal" VO sets - Stoic, Noble, Feisty et cetera - but there are always more attitudes that could be represented here. In addition, it just seems like there should also be some racial/regional voices. I mean, just from the characters already in the game, Kana Rua sounds to me like what an Aumaua should sound like, but if I create an Aumaua character, none of the voices seem like they fit other than maybe stoic (since Kana Rua kind of creates an expectation of deeper bass on the voices of Aumaua) and if I go with an Orlan, only Feisty really seems to fit (since there's a bit of a higher pitch to that voice set). This also seems fairly true of regional dialect, since stuff like the Vailians are obviously Italian inspired, it would seem to be a natural fit if they had a bit of an Italian tilt to their voices, or the Aedyrans had more of a British tilt (going by Aloth anyway) and I can't do either of those things with the current PC VO packs. As for the idea of a paid VO DLC, I'd only buy a specific VO DLC if its promise was to add VO to every line of dialogue in the game. Then it would be worth the cost to me, but the economics on that would probably be a net loss on Obsidian's part (lots of hiring of VO actors, lots of integration into the game time, lots of testing to make sure it all works properly, then lots of fixing when the inevitable bugs appear) so I don't mind that such a thing would ever come to pass, personally.

Yeah I kind of wish I could become a backer for the achievement at this point. I'm a big ol' achievement ho when it comes to games I like and try to get 100% on them, and here's a case where there's no way that's possible since there's a backer only achievement. Which is frustrating me, but c'est la vie.

Actually I jumped on line to report this as well. I recruited Sagani a bit ago and sent her to my Stronghold as i was doing other stuff for other companions at the time. I sent her on a stronghold adventure at one point but otherwise hadn't used her yet. Now, I headed back to Od Nua to resolve an attack, then decided to explore the paths below for a bit with Sagani in tow to sheck out her abilities and unique pet, but when I accessed the paths through the shortcut on the stronghold bailey, she spawned in the group but her fox didn't. So yeah, consider that a bug reproduced at least. Also, is it intended behavior that the Paladin's aura should be gained by enemies? I had that happening earlier today on my triple crown character. It may have killed me because I noticed all of the beasts under the temple of Eothas were gaining the zealous attack bonus in the middle of the fight. My guys were too, but so were the enemies. I assume this is a bug, but I don't know because I was on Path of the Damned at the time and don't know if that's just some horrible way to make things even harder.