Boeroer

Backer NPCs have a gold tinted nameplate while all others is good of any color (just grey). It's not superobvious but noticable. If you know what to look for you cannot unsee it. Unless you have some disability of course. In that case I can't tell you how to distinguish them - maybe the form is also a bit different (given Josh is colorblind and usually makes sure that color is not the only distinguishable feature) but I never noticed.

It doesn't hurt anything. Unless you don't go to I think you won't miss out on anything. At least as far as I remember.

While stealthed you'll have -85% recovery time which pretty much takes away the recovery after the first Blast. Smoke Veil can come right after that. So every weapon can have that benefit if we're only using that one shot from stealth. If you want to fire during an encounter (like from invisibility) then you are absolutely right. Mortars' short range of 4 m makes them rel. poor stealth weapons. You can often not vanish before enemies reach you - even if the reload gets canceled. It's ok if you fire last (so the chance to kill is higher) and wear Boots of the Assassin.

Tossing money at a problem it is then! Again...

Yes, it's more micromanagement but in most cases it's better to switch instead of using Vulnerable Attack (or Penetrating Shot).

It's basically fan fiction/stories placed into backer NPCs. You can completely ignore them if you wish. Same with all tombstones: the engravings are all backer-related and have nothing to do with with game's story etc.

However, you can savely travel to the entrance of Caed Nua and then go back from where you came.

With 5 rogue/whatever you can also use rod + Blast + Gouging Strike (what @thelee meant). Lure enemies, drop 5 Blasts on them so that every enemy gets rolled multiple times to be sure. Then smokeveil out of there. What wasn't dead after the initial assault will die from the DoT. Spares you the rinse-and-repeat but sometimes you have to wait quite a bit until everybody's dead.

Seriously: if that is CohhCarage's way of saying "meh" he should really work on his straightforwardness. If anything any potential player who's used to normal interpersonal communication would buy the game even sooner after watching this I'd say?

Difficult. Can't you end the combat by retreating further so that your endurance goes back up? That would also allow to switch items on Pallegina. What spells does Aloth have?And how many spell uses left? Does Durance have uses left he could use for any reviving spell? No scrolls or potions in the quick slots?

Correct. Weapon sets do nothing when they are not your active set at the moment. It's like they are in the stash then. One obvious use of multiple weapon sets is to skip reloading, but the general idea is to be flexible. Besides that switching to an appropriate weapon in regards to enemies' DR is often better than using Vulnerable Attack and such - it's also useful to keep a backup weapon for more reach or range should there be a situation where you can't touch the enemy otherwise. And that's is basically. Island Aumaua with four guns, Quick Switch and Coil of Resourcefulness (=zero switch time) can be preeetty devastating.

Well that comes as a surprise now...

Correct. Also lashes do NOT profit from DR bypass such as Vulnerable Attack or Penetrating Shot or Rending (enchantment on weapons). They always have to overcome DR/4, no further reduction of DR. Bythe way: there are some spells that also only have to overcome 1/4 DR. Those are the ones with fixed damage (no roll but a fixed base). No idea why. But stuff like Iconic Projection is actually a lot better than it looks at first glamnce since it also only has to overcome 1/4 of freeze DR. the other one I remember is Thorny Roots and Brutal Takedown (Ranger). I think there were one or two more...? Anyway - just a sidenote...

Legacy of Bhaal. It's a difficulty setting.

I think one reason why devs avoid to design quests like that (I mean quests that only a fraction of players might see) is that development time is so expensive. And if you make 100 quests you will have to spend money for 100 quests. But if only 50 quests will contribute to the "perceived" content of the game (because players will miss the rest that doesn't fit their char) players might argue "Why is this game 50 bucks? It's way too short/small for 50 bucks". Of course this would solve itself if all players would play the game more than once with different chars, but with the usual longish RPG not that many players seem to do that. That's obviously the advantage of roguelikes/roguelites where it's the normal game mode to start again very often.

With the same argumentation one could claim a refund if one doesn't like a chocolate bar. Take a bite and demand a refund for the 90% that's left. I know - it's not the same since software doesn't get used up just because I downloaded it. But even if physical products and software are not congruent in every aspect: That "let's just try it and get a refund if I don't like it" not my approach. Also not with Amazon products where that's a usual thing to do (I only send back a product once to Amazon - except broken stuff of course). I also don't try on some clothes in a boutique (which seem to fit nicely) but after some days I think "I don't actually like them" and bring them back. Not wha I do. I don't like that mindset. It seems to be a bit careless. Obviously it's ok to do that. But it's not my approach. I would give the clothes to somebody I know or to charity and move on. My approach is to accept that my decision was hasty or risky or simply poor - and I would want to improve my decision-making in the future. If I don't take responsibility for poor decisions I feel I will never learn to make better ones. A sideeffect is that I cherish the things I bought more and use them more often. Nowadays you can watch youtubers and streamers and reviews and tests and whatnot which can give you a good idea about a game. I'd say it's very easy to make an informed decision and the risk of buying something you actually loathe is very low. However - happened to my two weeks ago. I bought The Darkest Dungeon. Now I know which kind of games I don't like. Since I often buy indy games... I want more indy games than less. I also think they often can use every dime. So I let them keep mine. It doesn't hurt me. Of course you can only follow that apporach if you don't have to turn every dime. In that case it's a very good thing that you can get refunds at all. And I'm sure Steam and otehr platforms would be happy if they didn't have to give them - but some brave people fought for it. So no flak from me for getting refunds. It's just my personal feels.

You could simply tie certain quests to game progress. Or the resolution of earlier quests. Or character level. Or reputation. Or all of that. Or whatever would make sure you don't get them all at once. Wouldn't it be cool if you got certain "shady" quests only if you had build up the fitting reputation? Why would you get "benevolent" quests from townies if you're known to be a murder hobo?

That's not possible (at least on PC) because they don't have grimoires. Only the grimoire mechanic allows for this trick.

Because it's very expensive and you have to find people who can deliver a solid quality. German and russian translation already is rather bad. Can't say about French but I didn't read praises either. And if you look at the potential customer numbers in Brazil and Portugal - and then add the fact that a lot of gamers there are able to understand English just fine - suddenly an expensive translation is not a viable financial endevour to take I guess.

To add: generall speaking every dmg bonusyou see in the game is additive. Exceptions: all lashes. This includes Wounding and also the tiny lashes that some weapon come with which is listed right besides their physical damage and not as enchantment. Weapons like Justice (10% crushing lash on top of its "official" 15% crushing lash), The Unforgiven (10% burning lash on top of the 25% burning lash) and Starcaller (same). All elemental lashes can be rised with Scion of Flame or one of the otehr elemental booster talents. So a 25% lash becomes a 30% lash or a 10% lash becomes a 12% lash. If you add several lashes (see Paladin with Flames of Devotion, Intense Flames and a burning lash on the weapon) they don't add to one big lash! They stey individual lashes which each has to overcome enemies' DR/4. So a bigger singular lash like Flames of Devotion (50%) is much more powerful than two 25% lashes. Turning Wheel (x% burning lash per wound) adds up to one singular lash though. Confident Aim. The raised MIN damage actually raises the min base damage of your weapon. Solitary on Comtessa's Gage gauntlets. Works a bit differently than Confident Aim but alters base nonetheless afaik. The highest damage numbers can be seen if you can add a lot of additive dmg bonuses with high base damage and then some lashes. If you have low physical damage but high lashes it's not optimal. If you have high physical damag but low lashes it's not optimal either. You want both. Rogues for example can get to very high physical weapon damage but they don't have access to many lashes like monks or paladins or chanters have. So if you can give them lashes they profit a lot.

I can (edit: oops, was late ). Weapon damage is the base of all calculations. But you have to understand that every weapon has a base damage that does never change. Not with quality (fine, exceptional etc.) nor with Might and Sneak Attack or crit. The base damage always stays the same. In your case, an arbalest has a fixed base damage of 22-32. The number shown above is that base damag PLUS all dmg bonuses the game can easily calculate (like the +45% dmg increase because it's superb). Stuff like Sneak attack or crits are of course not part of that tooltip because those are circumstancial bonuses that not always apply. So, basically the tooltip is preventing you from grasping the "real" calculation which goes like this: Weapon base damage * (1+ dmg_bonus_1 + dmg_bonus_2 + dmg_bonus_3) = overall weapon damage. This has to go through DR. That overall weapon damage is used to calculate the lash damage (if you have a lash): overall weapon dmg * lash = lash damage. Lashes have to go through 1/4 of DR. Grazes, crits, Might, Savage Attack... basically ALL dmg bonuses and mali are additive as you can see. So a crit isn't really a multiplier. It's just an addition. Maybe it once was a multiplier in the beta version or such, but nowadays it's not. It's a plain additive bonus. Lashes as you can see are multiplicative. But they have to overcome DR seperately. So while they tend to have a bigger impact at higher levels they can get eaten up by DR and then do nothing. Now in your case the calculation goes like: 22-32: avererage of 27. Crits usually do *0.5 base damage. But arbalests have -0.3 so it's only 0.2 in this case: 27 * (1+0.45superb+0.2crit) = 44.55 on average. However you rolled a 52.1 in this case which is absolutely in the lines of what's possible. Maybe yo ualso have some other dmg bonuses like a bit more Might or whatever - or not, no idea. You rolled 52.1. So 52.1 has to go through 12 pierce DR. Usually that would mean 52.1 - 12 = 40. But an arbalest has 3 DR bypass and thus reduces the enemy's DR from 12 to 9 (12-3) and thus it can do 43 pierce damage. If you had a burning lash (or whatever element - which I highly recommend to put on every weapon asap) you'd have an additional 52.1 * 0.25 = 13 burn damage which woud have to go through the enemy's burn DR/4. Let's say it also has 12 burn DR. So that would mean 13 - (12/4) = 10 burn damage that goes through. All in all you'd have 43 pierce + 10 burn damage. You can see why lashes are so good.

No, I wouldn't. Depends a bit on the difficulty you are playing at though. Generally speaking: the higher the difficulty the more enemies you will face. The more enemies on the battlefield the less efficient a rogue becomes. Rogues are good when it comes to taking down a single enemy quickly. But rogues are not that great at taking out lots of enemies quickly. They have no ability with an Area of Effect so they can't disable, control or damage multiple enemies at once like a Wizard, Priest, Druid, Monk, Barbarian or Cipher can. However, if you want to have a guy in the party who can take out particular threats asap - for example enemy wizards, druids or priests - then a rogue can still be great even at Path of the Damned. And of course a rogue has the highest potential mechanics score - that can be a reason to bring one as well. But if you have enough mechanics already you can totally go with that party you described above and won't need a rogue.

Not really. You can do it like that, but there's no rule that says that you can't have important quests in a town or village and that it can't be a hub that you'll return to frequently. Example: Stalwart. That village seems to be liked best by most players who played PoE + expansions. I don't have numbers obviously, but if you read about complaints about settlements in PoE you only read about Defiance Bay and Twin Elms. Dyrford, Stalwart etc. are rarely mentioned, if ever. Now you could say that's because the players "forgot that they ever existed" - but at least Stalwart is so integral to the whole WM expansions that I don't think that's the case.

I usually don't get refunds. I made the (usually informed) decision to buy that game - and as long as it's not broken or something I think that it's my problem if I don't like it. Usually it's not the quality of a game (reviews help here not to buy badly done stuff) but it's simply my taste that wasn't met. I understand that players who don't have much to spare will get refunds though. I would have done it as a student, too. Money was so scarce then. That's no longer the case. So - one could say that instead of wasting time I now waste money. But I don't feel that way. That's why stuff like Pathfinder, D:OS and D:OS2, Wasteland2 and lots of other titles sit in my Steam library with me barely looking at them, let alone playing them. Wait - now that I think about it: can't one give away games on Steam or something? Or lend them for free? Wasn't that a thing?

Something that also plays a role (when it comes to perceived strength) is how fun a character is to play. And it's no fun to watch your party whittle down an enemy very slowly - even if your dudes are sturdy as hell and can't really lose. Once you've determined that your party can reliably win a fight the qualifier for "stronger" shifts from "who can win this?" to: "who can win this faster"?