Stoner

This music is sooo sweet, shapes the ambience just fine, sometimes I just stand there for minutes, listening it. I have music completely turned off in game (I do so in most games because it distracts me) but this composition broke through somehow and won my heart. Can I get this track somewhere? Can someone kindly point me to it? I'd be grateful.

Truly well written and charismatic character, but I really didn't like voice acting, felt too unnatural and compulsive. I doubt she is old as stated above, she seems more like middle-aged woman, but her combat finesse is certainly more of a young woman... feels a bit odd, maybe she's hiding her true age? Also I don't think she could be reincarnation of Eothas, but idea is brilliant really. Just because I don't thing "Gods" can be reincarnated, they seem more like artificial constructs without souls to me, but I don't want to get into deep PoE Gods discussion in this thread. There's some staggering, splendid and terrific bordering with creepy moment in journey with her. If you never tried to sacrifice her at Blood Pool, you may wanna do that, well, I did that with some other chraracters and reactions of party members were there but with Grieving Mother, well, it felt something else... Really wished she was romance-able, I fell in love with her at first sight...

On my first playthrough I read EVERY backer NPC story and some were really well written and even exciting, I don't think it breaks immersion that much. About background noises, maybe I'm deaf, but it never bothered me, at times it felt like it was taken straight from Neverwinter Nights 1 (one of my favorite RPGs back in a day) and even that doesn't bother me, more like bringing up good old memories. The only things that MAY break immersion are gravestones, I didn't bother to read them all but mostly it contains funny and ridiculous stuff. Still, it's not like being thrown in your face, avoiding it is pretty easy.

@Fenixp Yeah, I do the same mostly, but you have to agree - it breaks the flow a bit

I hope thread name isn't too confusing... These little things had been nagging at me each playthrough. Example, Eder speaking (voiced): bla-bla-bla (no-spoilers ) - he frowns - bla-bla. I like reading everything, each word, not to miss single sentence, expression and etc. Main problem comes with voiced dialogues, you can follow text but pauses are too short to read entire text of the speaker in one go, so you have to listen and then re-read (with descriptions this time) full text. Voice acting is very good, even great, but it cannot express everything that's written inside dialogue window, sometimes it's mood expressions, sometimes pose shifts and gestures. I'm perfectly fine with games that have just text dialogues and no voices, but since it's done in PoE, and done very well, it feels bad to just turn it off. How to live with such a nuisance?... Does anyone else feel the same way? P.S. People in Eora are too grim, the frown way too much...

Interesting observation, noticed that too and quite pleased with it.

Not sure if this is right section for a topic like that but still... It's pretty obvious that almost every fantasy novel or game nowadays drawing some inspiration and ideas from historical mythology, religions and etc. There are too many references to some pagan cultures and beliefs like wheel and the souls, polytheism, specific customs and etc. I'm really not that good at historical science or religions to be honest, but I'd really like to know from which sources mostly lore of this game have been tailored. I did a little research myself on the matter a bit but it's a safer bet to hear opinions from people who might have deeper knowledge of both the game lore and science, because I will surely miss some rather important details on my own.

1. This one is rather cheesy, done in Durgan's Battery. After I finished quest and White Forge was accessible to me I travel to entrance of this dungeon again, and that's what I did: since I like doing some backtracking to make sure I haven't missed stuff like loot or maybe some event I do another sweep, so this time on entrance first I chose to go one level below, found nothing left, got out and then chose to ascend to the top. I appeared on the first floor of White Forge dungeon and it reset, I met same mobs, found same loot (few more Durgan Steel Ignots), and if you have finished Garodh's quest and find first piece of his help in this reset dungeon you get another Garodh's Chorus helm after his speech. But you cannot go below from this floor, exit to next will by unaccessible but you can freely turn back, no quests will be reset and nothing will break. Would be great if you can replicate this bug and write about it here guys. 2. That was really funny one. I made final preparations to go for Adra Dragon. I remember how much grief it caused me on my last playthrough so I basically was preparing for this battle throughout my journey. Maxed every character picked and enchanted best possible gear, bought total of 10 Paralize Scrolls for 2 casters and went forth. So after short dialogue battle began, I only had a chance to cast first Paralize which hit successfully and BAM Adra Dragon falls dead. I have no idea what or how it happened because battle barely began, I had no cheats, haven't even opened console once throughout this game, was playing on Hard, nothing unusual with gear or party members, I even slew Alpine Dragon before going for Adra, battle was pretty tough, took me 3 tries to down this beast. That's ironic really, boss that you dedicated all your resourses and mind to just falls after single slap in a face... 3. The Ironclasp Grimoire is absolutely broken... I bought spells that I hadn't in my Grimoire and after that they vanished both from my Grimoire and from The Ironclasp, seems not only Ninagauth's Grimoire is broken...Still, keeping it in my bag, hope this will get fixed after an update or two.

@Aarik D Thanks for response! And sorry, I can't provide save, I've already cleared this place and moved on, it wasn't gamebreaking or anything so I just didn't thought it would be important...

That's highly subjective and therefore highly debatable. While I do feel like PoE is a lot of fun and the combat really isn't that different from BG; except er, BG had more sophisticated AI (what the hell, Obsidian?). A lot of people take issue with stat system being too realistic (wizards require high Might? WTF?) which in turns breaks RP. And I can't fault them for that. I would much rather they go back to the classic stat system. Divinity: Original Sin was considered better than PoE in the combat department. And I am impartial either way. But I had tons of fun play D:OS. It had some brilliant innovations that PoE so sorely lacked. There are many games that does RP better than PoE in one way or another: - Dragonfall and SR: HK came to mind. The RP element was incorporated into the gameplay. I wished PoE had taken a note from HBS. But you already know that. - Dragon Age's Thedas is just a better, more "modern" setting than Eora. PoE at its core is stuck in 2000. Audiences have moved on from the PG-13 dark fantasy. Thedas has gay people, and religious fundamentalism, racism and class struggle - these are the things that strike a cord with today's audience; opportunities that PoE missed. Good post here, I've been waiting for something like this, now let's see things from another perspective: I too finished D:OS few times and was comparing combat (solely combat) to PoE and what it comes down to isn't very good in fact. One thing that D:OS absolutely excells at are raw combat mechanics, but execution is simply too bad. They made outstanding system but failed to properly make it work. D:OS combat completely depends on very cheesy and dumb exploits, it has few, very powerfull combinations and as soon as you figure them out (and that's happen pretty soon) you literally get into god-mode, devastating everything with mindnumbing ease. Despite that game advertises non-class system, but it basically has only 2 viable classes: Warrior and Mage, everything else has it uses but cannot compare in power to this duo even close. Warrior is BEST damage dealer in the game, he's literally immortal so you can easily enchant his armor for ~100%+ element absorbation which heals you while getting hit, has high armor rating and health. We max his Strength and Constitution, rest points go to Speed, dump everything else and there you have a beast which can chop everything with lightning speed and stay alive forever Mage is most flexible class in game. You can basically make anything out of him just with help of magic. Uber winning strategy: create 2 mages with Lonewolf perk, spread Elements (Fire/Water for one Earth/Lightning for another), also you'll have tons of spare points which you don't really have any use for and can dump in pretty much anything, doesn't matter. You max Intellect and Speed, nothing else, when you have spare, up Con or Per, doesn't matter rly. Before each combat cast 2 Golems, AI is nonexistant so they will attack these dummies, and with insane speed on both characters you just sit there and perma-paralize (rain/lightning) or perma-freeze, or kill outright with oil+fire. Anything coming close gets teleported far away and so on... No one can touch you. That said, you have tons of shields for each element (even Immortality in Witchcraft), insane healing and you literally can recast Golems each turn (considering each mage has 2). All other classes are, well... not so good, and I personally don't see any reason in playing them. Maybe Rouge can be considered good, with him you can solo most of the content but you have to be super careful and it takes insane amounts of time. Marksman is just gimped Mage, and system punishes multiclass because each skill tree depends on unique attribute, and if you go for multiclass, you'll just won't have enough points so build will be broken and very weak. There's NO tank or support roles in games, just few god-mode builds totally bent around pure damage and cc, nothing else. Levelling is sooo simplified, I don't know if devs truly had no better idea or were so over their heads to not scare off casual gamers with more complex system, looks just parhetic tbh, dumpstats everywhere... Also regarding combat system, I LOVE turn-based combat, but the way its done in this game, it's just irritatingly slow... As in any RPG we have plenty of trashmob encounters and when in PoE I clear them in few seconds on auto, in D:OS I have to sit long minutes through AI turns, especially when pack is huge. Considering EACH encounter starts and ends the same way (with single powerfull combo) it makes you sleep through it... So we have half-baked combat system which doesn't do its job, but with great potential, incredible interactive but small world, VERY BAD writing: feels like it was written by sad 13 YO girl dumped by her boyfriend with some Biblical (totally out of place) motives (just remember the plot, no spoilers), to draw more epicness to story, I'm sure. And same very low level of "humour"... Seriously, I have played Dragon Commander, gameplay of this game sucks unbelievably hard but writing is fantastic, characters are great, humour is THERE, I can't believe same people were working on both of these games... This is much of an IMO but to be honest, many ppl aren't satisfied with writing, and to majority it probably feels the same way as to me, check steam reviews. So all in all this is FAR from good RPG. Now Dragon Age. I won't even mention 2 and 3, because it's simply one huge embarassment, but as for Origins, what do we have? Ok'ish RP, levelling system even more dumbed down than in D:OS, stupid combat system with nonexistant AI full of exploits and fights tied to cc skills timers... non-working classes (my Mage was better tank then Warrior in Heavy Armor, ROFL*) and so on. Linear plot with evil arch-demon dragon which want to destroy the world, not generic at all... It may be considered as mediocre game, but in all honesty it sucks and cannot be compared even close to classics on ANY account. And the last one - Shadowrun, well, I won't say the word about DMS but Dragonfall is a true masterpiece, no argument here (haven't played Hong-Kong yet but I'm sure it's on par) but it excells in only few aspects - writning, RP and atmosphere, combat and levelling is waaay to simplistic which isn't bad really, but that's a weak point which don't let this game reach some quality heights. And here we have PoE: decent writing, good RP, very good combat, gorgeos visual style/sounds, fantastic atmosphere and overall feeling of the game, everything simply FITS in here, nothing feels out of place. It has flaws, sure, but in each aspect it can be easily rated as good and above. PoE has everything cRPG fan may want from this game purely objectively. Some ppl may not like something particular but at the same time game hasn't any aspect completely broken, and that's huge advantage in my book. @Zherot I wasn't "attacking" anyone, bro, we just share opinions here, I did not intended to offend people, sorry if you felt that way.

I totally don't care for achievements but I'll still hold out on using the console, thanks for the tips tho, seems some spells are bugged and my main thankfully isn't Wizard, so Aloth will do just with new Fireball for now.

Hm, I don't really wanna discuss Fighter class here but I built him strictly as defensive powerhouse and he does its job absolutely perfect for me, even better than in most RPGs I've played. Yes, nerf decreased his defencive capabilities a bit but he's still solid, I just throw then in a pack of tough mobs and forget about him, while Monk with Barb cleaving the flanks and casters safely nuking enemies.

@AndraColombo Actually yes, my main carries fully unlocked Grey Sleeper but there was no combat at Doemenel's or in Dunryd Row at the moment I saw those corpses.

A funny thing, guys who say combat in PoE sucks always compare it to classics like BG, but overall, despite some flaws combat system is pretty similar, but in all honesty, no one can name SINGLE cRPG in last 10 years which has better combat or overall roleplaying feeling than PoE. That's something, isn't it?

My feeling towards this game are absolutely opposite to yours OP. I admit that there are things I'm not quite agree with and feel wrong about maybe, but overall, especially combat is just a BLAST for me. I highly enjoy every bit of this game and can't get enough of it. I have enjoyed Arcanum, BG1/2, IWD, Planescape and etc. back in a days too, and no matter how good those games were you just want something new, and that something is PoE for me now. I hadn't that feeling in more than 10 years, seriously, and PoE brough it back. Plot isn't something I can really appreciate this game for, writing not that engaging but main point is that it FITS well for this game, it doesn't feel wrong or out of place, atmosphere is set just right, and that includes everything, maybe feels a bit bland sometimes but still, all these characters, dialogues, gorgeous backgrounds and sounds working real magic together. Combat is intense, it's fast and with new AI settings (although they aren't perfect yet) it feels especially satisfying. When I wanted some challenge I went to locations with powerfull enemies and weak party and I got it. This game has basically all I need. And truth is: I'm not a backer, I was REALLY sceptical about this game and probably wouldn't even look it's way if one of my friends wouldn't make me to play this almost by force.

I seriously don't think that it's a problem worth discussing. 99% of game content isn't really challenging, especially when you know what you can tackle and when. This game has literally unlimited rest option which can be done almost everywhere and there's no penalty for it (like random monsters spawning that destroy your group during sleep) so I imagine most players running out of health faster than spells and other Per Rest abilities. In my opinion it just gives a player more variety in combat, making it visually more appealing and let loose some fireworks. All spells (even endgame) aren't really that powerfull. I actually like that most abilities and spells don't give you godmode or devastate-everything-around powers like in some other RPGs (Divinity OS), it just gives you an edge, some buffs, etc, nothing that can completely win you a fight. And toughest challenges are Dragons and maybe some contracts (not really tho...) which this Per Encounter thingy doesn't help even a little.

Have anyone came across something like that? Corpses of creatures laying where no fighting have happened and where they shouldn't be in a first place? I made a screenshot here: That one is in House Doemenel (second floor), same corpse I've seen in Dunryd Row and few other places which I can't recall. What's that?

Yeah, I guess you're right, but thing is, I don't tend to buy any uniques, atleast not before endgame when I'm about to go for toughest foes, but I just find MORE unique Greatswords than any other types if weapons... About Redeemer, well, that's not fair... most Fighters are built as tanks (one-hander + shield) IMO and giving him bindable two-hander (along with Grey Sleeper) is a waste...

Oh crap... Thanks for sharing, I hope devs will fix this bug somehow because I went FAR ahead and reloading would destroy my progress... Still keeping that Grimoire in my bag, hope I would make better use of it with the new update =/ Those spells look fantastic.

Found this beautiful mace in White Forge but then I found out that it bindable only to Priest or Rogue. Priest is fine, but Rogue?... Seriously? Well, someone might be using maces for his Rogue, but then again, why no Fighter? This class is literally begging for those kinds of weapon, and it broke my heart... Also noticed that in this game there are way too many unique Greatswords in comparison to other weapons, don't you think? And since I'm not too fond of this type of weapon and non in my party carrying it, I would be happy if there were more variety on that matter.

Problem is, my characters are level 12, 1 and 2 tier spells became per encounter for Wizard, Druid, Priest and etc. I don't have "use per rest" checked, but AI won't use per encounter spells as well, no matter what I set in their behaviour. Can I force them to do that somehow?...

Whow, never played PoTD solo but still had no idea those summons can last 20 secs... they die on hard with full party like in 3-5 seconds for me =/

If anyone curious about where to find it, I just occasionally stumbled upon it. For those who don't know about this, it's a little quest, you find staff buried in the snow in Russetwood (White March), after interaction there'll be small scene and close to it is a "map" (secret find) which says about this Grimoire but doesn't give even a clue where to look for it, lol... Not sure about requirments, but my Devil of Caroc has 12 mechanics and spotted it pretty easily, its in Durgan's Battery btw. Here are some screenshot to help you find it: There's pretty interestiong unique spell there, might be a big use for any Wizard, have fun

Well, there's nothing gamebreaking really, just rather funny tbh. I chose to kill fishery owner who killed his sister (can't recall his name) and Lurgolder (the guy who I probably dragged out of burning house) sided with me in this fight. He survived and said thanks after the fight, but next time I enter fishery, I see curious picture, Lurgold gets attacked by Fishery Guards and Workers and even if I force attack them and they turn on me, killing them all, Lurgold still gets killed by invisible enemy which I have no way to prevent. I'm just curious if Lurgold isn't quest character and I'm not missing anything with his death? Here's the screenshot:

Just wanted to add new info about this quest, found another way to compete it: 1. Travel in Defiance Bay than to Heritage Hill, on the top floor of the Tower you can interact with machine and get verses unlocked. 2. Than you don't need to go to Easternwood, just get out of Tower in Heritage Hill and Rest in the Camp outside, after the rest you will get next verses unlocked. 3. Same as posted before me, Adra Pillar in Caed Nua, but I'm sure there should be some other interactable pillars, would be interesting if someone finds out about them.