Stoner

Haven't noticed any evil or good in any of my companions, I'm more amused about absolutely insane stuff like this (beware, fat spoilers ahead):

The only real problem that we find way more traps than we can actually use without turning game into tedium. This goes without saying that we still can buy more traps... Raising cap to 3 will not solve everything, but it will improve the state for sure. Now, there's another thing, I'm not personally big fan of it, but sometimes you wanna roleplay trapper-ranger-rogue character, with current game mechanics that's some real pain. There are two ways I see: 1. Make traps rare, expensive and powerfull, so it will not make up for your screwed up party composition but instead give you advantage in combat when you need it most. 2. Leave traps as they are, but raise cap to be able to set at least 3 in a row, letting us put bad guys is some real amusing circumstances. In my book fun and variety > balance. And considering balance is obviously not Pillars' strong point, I don't see anything wrong with reworking trap mechanics a bit.

Yes, with the difference that scrolls/potions can be spammed or used multiple times during combat, when traps only can be set basically in stealth before encounter and being evaded by sly AI (which happened to me several times lol)... I would seriously raise cap to set at least up 3 traps or buff them a little. Spamming paralysis scrolls vs. traps.

Do anyone use traps in combat? I'm more concerned about them being close to useless for player. Why not make them do similar damage as world ones, as we still capped at one per set IIRC?

This isn't directed at anyone in particular, but the best game in the series had an unvoiced protagonist. It was when BioWare announced that DA2 would have a fully voiced protagonist that I sensed the impending doom of the franchise as a quality role-playing experience. In all honesty I can't view any DA game as RPG, so no "doom" happened for me. Those more like Hollywood actions here, all MEs and DAs in the same bucket, high budget pop-corn entertainment, and IMO DA2 was absolutely the best, but highly delusional pseudo-RPG loving audience would certainly disagree... On the main point - agreed, unvoiced protagonist is the way to go, though we still have a choice of voice in any decent RPG used mostly in combat & short replics, and I'm perfectly fine with it.

Hmm, can't say Pillars text overall was overwhelming, I had a few moments talking to Backer NPCs when text was getting rather thick, but that's not really adressed to the game itself. Also when I tried to read every book, but then I stopped and read only those I was most interested in. And how exactly it is developers' problem, if player gets into cRPG, skipping text while missing out on important info?... It's important to note (IMO) that genre along with setting puts some restrictions to manner of presentation, and language of Pillars absolutely feels just in place, exactly as it should be, that's not a small accomplishment in my book. On WM, I can speak only for the first part yet, but only thing I noticed is that it maintained same style, and that's beautiful. I don't see it as "easy/hard" read, because mainly I don't perceive original game as such. That's strange statement... I see both SR:D and HK as a great example to how text and dialogues should be presented in any RPG. But than again, it's opinions probably, plus SR devs hands were more free with writing style, it doesn't follow set in stone, very specific enviroment, unlike PoE.

I think it's highly dependant on what games we are talking here. If that's pop-corn blockbusters like Dragon Age or Mass Effect than yes, voice acting is rather mandatory, but cRPG is actually floating unique genre that binds together literature, music and visual arts. If individual used to reading alot, in my humble opinion that person has pretty vivid imagination and even superb VA may ruin it. I can't speak for all, but for me it's often the case, the voice and manner of speaking of certain charater sometimes breaking up real bad from what I imagine would fit. On the side note, specifically for PoE VA breaks narrative flow pretty hard, I just can't get over it...

I never had an issue with lacking supplies, but I have another one instead - small cap. Since I have, well, call it mental disorder, I like picking up everything I'm coming across, and since I play on higher difficulty, 2 is just painfully small. Find myself resting alot when I don't need to for not back tracking to this place. In game mechanics scale it really doesn't offer any difficulty or challenge, that's just tedium to backtrack in locations when you have space for supplies just to pick them up. There were many great ideas by players to autamatically convert excess supplies to copper, send them in stash or remove it as loot, which is best IMO, because this will actually involve planning and supply conservation, I would even raise buy price for that. I just don't understand, devs made good call with inventory and options for it, but completely neglected same issues they solved but with supplies...

@kvaak Heh, funny, since for me Durance is absolutely worst and most annoyng-foolish character I've ever seen in any cRPG or even aRPGs I've played. On game mechanics I quite agree with most you say, but thing I can't get over is how attributes affect character, mainly how Might affects damage from all sources like magic and gun combined plus in dialogue... *shrug* Now, on the list: - As said before, doesn't bug me for some reason at all. - As most of this stuff is trash and I hardly found any equipment from those secrets that was essential, it also doesn't bug me. And most important equipment I'd need is unmissable IIRC, dunno, maybe this changed in WM2. - I really enjoyed combat even before Auto system was introduced, it makes each encounter very exciting, especially on PoTD, since most fight are lightning fast. Yeah, agree on how they sometimes ignore orders but hey, it's still fun, challenge! Now with Auto (which I turn off for each non-trash combat) fights became really relaxing. Kudos to devs for this. - There are two reasons why I don't view it important, 1: if you truly roleplay, you won't do this, because you would lean on basic attributes for checks. 2: checks aren't mandatory, you still are able to resolve situations but other way around. There are two other problems I see here 1: Resolve attribute is overrated in many conversations, and not so demanded among some builds, personally non of my chars have high Resolve. 2: Gear +attributes shouldn't be counted towards checks in dialogues, they should only affect combat stats, this would fix gear swapping completely, no idea why not done yet, but still, doesn't feel like a real issue. - Agreed, but only way to resolve this I see is to make foes scale to your level, since you're free to go in any location most of the time. This has a bright side: you can level and blitz through previously hard encounter or torture yourself looking for challenge to go in hard location with weak party. Everyone is happy in my book heh, though it may only be a problem for the first timer, game doesn't tell you where to go and where not to. - Hmm, have no idea about this, navigating UI always was very easy and intuitive for me. - Jeez, never had any of this thankfully, sorry that you had =/ There's some more stuff that I would've done differently, but all in all, game may not be absolutely perfect, but very decent in all aspects combined IMO.

How I usually do stuff I need in my game and noone is interested in: Get mod that does what I want > dissecting it > ripping stuff I need and dump everything else > learning modding in the process. Sadly I haven't used IE Mod, so I can't say if it's possible or not, but if it worked with prev. versions and have this feature, I'm sure there is a way to get this feature working separately and for 3.0+.

Cannot agree, guess that's tastes. On my first playthrough I took here with me as soon as I met her, and till the endgame she always remained in my party, exhausted every dialogue and finished her personal quest, on latter playthroughs I tried to avoid talking to her, but she's quite good combatant. Starting with Monk wasn't best idea, Zahua is a must in any party IMO, can't talk for most folks, but he makes me laugh burtsing in tears sometimes, heh.

Stop it guys, it's fanatasy world, you can explain it any way you want and all would be legit. I really love devs for doing it the way it is, I also hope they did same stuff with supplies but oh well...

Lol at this thread, author comes complaining on text in cRPG, seriously?... PoE text may not always be very engaging and extremely interesting, but it very well contributes to game lore and setting in every possible way, still, noone holds your hand, you can freely skip any text you come across, turn the game into Diablo with party, haha. @Jajo So true... Both SR:D and HK got me basically glued to screen reading, I can't remember reading ANY books/novels with such craving interest in my life.

While voice acting in this game is VERY good, especially of companions, and that gives them real character, but still, I think any voices shouldn't be in this game, text only. Maybe shout/short replics during combat, but that's it. I'm always tempted to turn off voices, and I think once I'm done with WM2, I'll do that on latter playthroughs. Really hope PoE2 won't use any voice acting in game, but uh... somehow I know this won't happen though it would cut down game budget, allowing them to concentrate on more important things...

I don't understand why some people want 3D engines in isometric RPGs that bad. Playing D:OS was rather painful for me, and visual style hurt my perception more than once... seriously, D:OS has it's merits, but gameplay is so clunky and slow, it almost makes you set alarm clock on wake up on every action... if this game would be 2D, I'm sure gameplay would be improved tenfold, and yes, hand drawn masterpiece backgrounds beats any 3D by the long shot.

Thanks everyone for responses. Now, to make few things clear: Pillars is one of the most bug free and almost perfect product from technical point of view compared to 90% of games I have played past these few years, that said my first playthrough was on full released version without any patches. Game didn't crash ONCE, loading screens aren't bugging me one bit. Than there were multiple playthroughs on different versions and patches, and last one was on initial WM1 (no patches). Performance of this game along with visuals is clearly fantastic, no complaints here. Throughout the game I've noticed only few partially broken skills/abilities or working incorrectly, funny NPC behaviour and stuff, been lucky to never encounter anything that may prevent me from getting past some points to finish the game and complete any quest. I'm more than fine with PoTD difficulty and mostly I know what I'm doing, hehe. I'm not looking for anything perfect in all aspects, game mechanics are rather complex and there always would be minor bugs here and there, really good to know about 3.02 being in works, any ETA would be VERY helpful if possible. I was really asking if something major is coming and seems like I got all I needed to know, thanks again. On a side note, I'm really happy for tech state of PoE, it's amazing how Obs achieved this, that being said Beth holds world record on bugginess and broken games in my book, don't think PoE could even go down this level, even if they mess this up completely lol.

Finished WM1 quite some time ago with few bugs, nothing gamebreaking but still a little annoying. Looking foward to get into WM2 at last, so how is it right now? Is it worth waiting a bit more or it's rather polished atm? I mean, any major/minor updates planned any time soon worth waiting for or is it a good time to dive in right now?

The original original campaign was truly awful, but otherwise I'd tend to agree. That said MotB was one of the best campaigns around. No argument here, didn't mention, because, well, that much is obvious. NWN2 original is also pretty awfull, tho MoTB was huge breakthrough. Honestly, that's some kinda tradition in some RPG's I played. Let's make a quick overview: NWN1 main campaign awfull - official addons are great, same with NWN2, Shadowrun Returns - awfull, Dragonfall/Hong-Kong - perfect, I had same hope for Divinity OS, but didn't happen... maybe DOS2 will be better. As a matter of fact, first campaign of those games I view as tech demos, they show you limits of game engine, overall gameplay mechanics, interactions with the world and etc, but completely sucks at story and narration, making playing it only for the sake of mechanics, but totally unangaging to follow the story. Just my 2 cents =)

Whow, someone enjoyed SoZ?... How's that possible? I thought I would puke by the end of it... Try Mysteries of Westgate, it's fantastic. Also IMHO NWN1 is waaay batter than NWN2 in almost every aspect including modules and addons. Hordes of The Underdark is true masterpiece. Sorry for derailing this topic, but can't ignore when someone mentions NWN, I love these games =)

I brutally hate mana magic system in games, not because of mana itself, but because of big problems with balancing. In most games I played with mana spell system my character eventually got to the point when mana pool become too large to be considered or gets crazy regen speed, so it basically comes down to "spam most powerfull spell" if it isn't cooldown restricted, and if it is, than spam next most powerfull spell and so on... Magic system based on pure cooldowns is even more ridiculous and imbalanced IMO no mater the genre. This Vancian magic system is best possible solution to: 1. Diversify casting with different spells which is great for gameplay. 2. Make magic actually powerfull by pulling hard restrictions (like 1-2 casts per rest) 3. Make player to think and consider if he may use spell now or save for later, thinking and considering is always fun. PoE resting system isn't perfect, but it's close to it. I bet with few tweaks (presumably in PoE2) devs will get this system on. Considering resting only to recharge spells, well, it's not like that for me, at least not on higher difficulties. Fighters often get worn out faster than mages fire all their spells, so resting is kinda balanced for me. Then still, if no more spells left, there are still pretty usefull per-fight abilities and presumably you won't waste too much per-rest spells (if any) on generic trashmobs. Hope more games would utilize this Vancian magic system, making magic truly badass, not like non-stop recasts of 1-2 most usefull spells =/

Why ppl want to change something that works, blends in game perfectly granting it unique style? 3D games are fine, but some of us are dying for old-school-styled isometric 2D game with gorgeous drawn backgrounds. PoE looks great, you can zoom in pretty close to see character model and enviroment detail, and even zoom out making it look more RTS-ish. Surface designed almost perfectly, you don't need to turn camera to see what's behind the corner. All-in-all devs chose this particular design, ppl who backed it on kickstarter and bought it later all were paying for specifically 2D isometric cRPG, why Obs should completely change next installement in series? Why kill unique style that so few modern games have these days? Please no, leave it as it is. The only thing I hope to see in PoE2 is more character customization options, more weapon/armor/body models and etc (which is expected), the rest should stay the same.

He clearly didn't die from drug abuse =/

One of the most bug free and balanced games (cRPG no less) I have played like in 3-5 years? Seriously, almost each new game comes out is completely broken mess, no matter the genre or developer, its' either horrible optimization with mediocre graphics that choke GTX 980 in SLI to 10 FPS or CTD on CTD with broken save system or something. Pillars have some issues but its HARDLY noticable and surely not gamebreaking compared to other games out there... see no reason on whining about that.

I was wondering the same thing some time ago but on my recent playthrough I set for all my party except Aloth to use per-rest spells/abilities and it works great. My main was Barb so he's kinda fights in auto-mode and in combat I basically main Aloth (love wizards) so I can control the spell usage. AI doesn't waste per-rest too much and takes loads off in micro for me. In tough fights you go rested and prepared so it doesn't hurt really. Still, I think this feature will be added in future.

Hard to believe BG veteran can have any challenge in this game aside from PoTD (sometimes). Also Dota somehow numbs brain functions, dunno why, but it certainly does =/ Expert mode doesn't add difficulty, ppl usually hit it on second/third playthrough not to be annoyed by excess info. If you really feel Hard is a little too much, switch to normal, get a hang of it, than you can increase difficulty. In all honesty PoTD hits the sweet spot in this game in terms of difficulty, only superboss fights getting too cheese, the rest of the game is just fine.