Grump

Bingo bingo... in the sense that this is exact what we would want the developers to avoid. carsomyr were a ridiculous overpowered weapon that you could gets early in the game. get your ultimate weapon and armour early in the game and then... well, that's it for equipment improvements for burt the paladin, eh? oh, and if you didn't follow the old soa boards and you were not aware that carsomyr were a greatsword, then the joke is on you burt. you chose long sword and so you end up with carsomyr envy for the next 50 to 150 hours o' gaming. sucker. etc. carsomyr is a great example o' what were freaking wrong with bg2 weapons. yeah, it's a game, so folks understandably wanna win, and better equipment means a stronger character. unfortunately, the presence o' powerful equipment, particularly if that equipment is only available to a particular build, is a bad idea. so yeah, "bingo." carsomyr were exact what obsidian should be attempting to avoid, regardless o' the fact that similarly powerful weapons is an attractive nuisance. HA! Good Fun! bg2 has been consistently voted number 1 rpg of all time by critics and user alike. Maybe you should go tell the critics that according to you there is something wrong with the game,............ Gaming culture changes, ideas are refined, and the industry evolves. BG2 was amazing for its time, and still is a VERY good game. But that shouldn't stop us from critically analyzing it and comparing it (or at least, the system it uses) to modern titles, especially titles that are described as "spiritual successors". That's how we change.

I feel like them having an AC is a flavor choice that is somewhat needed to make them feel distinctly different from, say, a ranged rogue or a fighter that can do both melee and ranged decently. The presence of an extra body (that is arguably more mobile than the rest of the party) offers the class some unique strategic options that other classes can't pull off independently. Where Rangers may not have as many flashy buttons, they do have battlefield options. I feel like the OP is just looking at pure numbers when he says that Rangers are UP, and that's just not fair.

I automatically have it switch to Slow-speed. I tried normal speed w/ autopauses, but that got messy really quick because I'd try to pause manually right as the game auto-paused, which turned into an unpause and messed up my timing for things. So now it's just auto-slow with almost no auto-pauses. This'll probably change though, since I'm getting increasingly fed up with the AI and will likely switch that off permanently soon, at which point I'll likely turn the auto-pausing back on.

To be fair, there doesn't seem to be very many deities within their belief set at all, much less ones that a druid or ranger could choose to follow. I suppose Galawain, Hylea and perhaps Ondra (though that's a bit of a stretch IMO) could fit as potential nature-ish gods, but then limiting the selection to only these two or three would perhaps limit potential roleplaying mechanics throughout the game, for those that are interested in such.

The dps a ranger can produce is not that much different from a spellcaster with a ranged weapon who selects relevant ranged talents eg marksman, the + 6 accuracy one, gunner, ect. Plus you can obvisiouly cast spells. Kind of like a multi class ranged fighter/ mage. You would be stupid to pick a ranger Only caster can get even close is cipher and even they are quite far behind against single targets in ranged combat. If you want ranged single target dps character it would currently be stupid to choose any other class than ranger. It should be also noted that rangers are mostly passive in their damage dealing ability where with casters you need actually constantly control them to get most of their damage potential. Ok you can have your ranger who will do probably about no more then 10-15% dps then one of my spell casters using a ranged weapon who can also decimate enemies with a huge variety of spells . I think I've made my point. You where also the person on my last forum who hijacked my post and kept posting negative comments everywhere. May I respectfully request you stay away from my posts please and I will stay away from yours. Thanks. He didn't hijack it, he was being funny. You seem to be the one that's having trouble discussing opposing viewpoints. Instead of blatantly ignoring their arguments, why don't you compare builds and results instead of saying "Nuh-uh, I'm right and you're not!"?

There is a optional keybinding for "Switch Weapon Set". I just tested it, and it works across all selected party members. Also, if you hold your mouse over a spell and push a key that doesn't have a keybinding attached to it, that spell is bound to that key (so long as you have that character selected). I believe grimoire cooldowns can be reduced with a talent. Scouting encounters ahead of time can help you decide when/if/how you want to link encounters together to give your buffs more mileage.

In typical game lore across a variety of games that I've seen (that follows a more all-things-must-end mindset), very very seldom would it make sense for somebody to be vanquished when all of their gear is in pristine condition (if indeed they have the means to even achieve said items). In real-life, weapons and armor are damaged, worn, or weathered during times of both use and inactivity. In most fantasy worlds, enchantments eventually get less powerful or wear off. How many epic storylines come from the entire notion of "Restoring an ancient artifact" or "repairing a sacred blade" or some other type of story trope? Realistically, if an item was truely so beyond-compare, how could the owner of that item be felled without destroying, damaging, or draining the item in the process? You mention feelings of fulfillment, but that's subjective. As an example, I find more fulfillment in taking a weapon that once belonged to a great nemesis and, through hard work and resourcefulness, making it even BETTER than it once was. From a balance standpoint, the route that would make the most sense to accomodate this playstyle would be to make the weapons slightly less impactful at start so they then have room to be upgraded to be above-par later. It all comes down to how you want to feel rewarded; ultimately, it's subjective.

So now that I'm learning a bit more about PoE and the basics, I've started my third game now and bumped the difficulty up to hard. Realizing I never got much farther than the stronghold portion, I'm reserving future judgement on how difficult the game will get (though Normal seems too easy for what I'm looking for). My question, now, is (at the stage of game I'm playing) how detrimental will it be that I'm not using a perfect build for my character? For roleplay reasons, I haven't spec'ed my built for optimization entirely (16, 8, 15,14, 14, 13) as a rogue, but I'm planning on taking a full 6-man party. None of the characters will be re-trained because, for my strictly RP playthroughs, I feel that controlling the progression of other party-members so much is almost like power-gaming (though I have no issue doing this on subsequent playthroughs). Using an RP-friendly build, with RP-centric party-members, will Hard give me much trouble during the entire play's lifespan? Or is this game like IWD where you're almost expected to power-game to a certain degree?