MaxQuest

There should be a system, that would control that. At the simplest level: - Throwing some ghost blades or missiles in a cone -> There are few projectiles -> Can be controlled -> FoE only - Throwing a cone of icy shards, each the size of a needle? -> Hard to control at close distance -> Mixed AoE (red + yellow) - Throwing a fireball? -> That's literally a ball of fire -> Hit everyone in AoE. And add kinetic impact at epicentre. Exactly!

Personally the second. As for the OT question... an interesting companion has to be: [humorous and empathic] or [hilarious in some way]. Alistair, Eder, Sand, Morrigan, Merrill, Isabela, Sera, Dorian, The Iron Bull and especially Varric are my all-times favorite companions behavior and banter-wise.

To be honest, after playing Tyranny, I've started to appreciate PoE's per-encounter/rest system. Not that I like resting, but the very thing that you had to strategically plan spell usage, leaving some of per-rest spells for later use, was making combat much more diverse. In Tyranny through, I almost always used the same spells/abilities, and usually even in the same order. It got repetitive really fast. Similar thing with monsters' immunities and effective defenses. In PoE, encounters felt more unique, each requiring a different key. And it was a great feeling, building a party that could deal with all the variations of enemies in multiple different ways. I agree with PrimeJunta, mechanically Tyranny was far less balanced than Pillars (see my feedback here). Yet on the level of concept, there were a few interesting ideas: conquest, reputation bonuses and especially spell crafting (which although has no place in PoE, could find a reflection in enchanting system).

^ If there was a difficulty mod, how much exactly would you like it to be harder than PotD, and how would you name it?

Hmm, does that break immersion for you? I always felt that an intelligent spellcaster manipulates his AoE spells in a way that doesn't harm his teammates except in the actual epicenter. But yeah, I'd like to have: - AoE spells (that deal damage to everyone, no matter what) - FoE spells (that damage only enemies) and - mixed spells (the ones that have red and yellow zones). As for whips and other new custom weapons, I suppose their usefulness strongly depends if there are going to be good unique ones, which can map into optimal new builds. For example in PoE1, clubs, maces and pollaxes felt a bit weaker than other alternatives. It's important that new weapon types to not get into the category of unused.

If that scripting is made in DA:O style (if A than do X; if B than do Y), I am happy. Mod for reference.

Fair enough. How it will turn out for PoE2 depends on the multi-classing system and ability of frontliners to contribute at crowd-controling.

Voted for 6. (Mostly against 4) Reasoning: - while having 4-man party in Tyranny I had often catching myself thinking "it would be less fuss to just solo this encounter". And after a solo-potd run I just grew stronger in that thought. Encounters were designed around a small party, and as result were not as difficult. This plus the fact that you are getting more xp when solo, just leads to the fact that you'd better play without a party at all. - adventuring with only 3 companions really limits one's freedom. For instance in DA:I I always felt bound to travel with Blackwall + Cassandra + Solas, as after lots of experimentation it turned out that they are the most optimal partners for every dps-character I would make. - some classes start to really shine when you have 2 of them in your party; specifically priest and cipher. Having a small party size would potentially deny this, as first you will have to assemble the core of your party. Tbh sometimes I even wanted a 7th slot to squeeze one more niche companion and achieve (in my understanding) a perfectly balanced party, ready to face virtually any possible encounter. P.S. Yet, 5-man party might indeed work nicely as well. In my opinion it all depends on how versatile multi-classing is going to be.

Interesting... what does 75-85% of power mean... Is that hypothetical lvl 12 watcher like a level 9 fighter + level 9 druid combined? Or does he have the same spells as a lvl 12 druid, but their aoe/damage is decreased via multiplying by 0.75-0.85? (and same for fighter's abilities)? And of course how does multi-classing deal with class-specific starting stuff, i.e.: animal companion, faith and conviction, soul whip,.. and especially carnage and chanting.

Boeroer had a nice suggestion of making carnage resource based. Damage dealt, damage taken and intellect could affect how much enraged a barbarian is. And the more his rage burns the bigger his carnage aoe gets.

I'm with you on points: 1,3,5,7 and 8. I'd also add: - some manageable property (Sawyer seems to like keeps, and tbh I do too; but a customizable and upgradable ship will do too); - richer enchanting system; - some sort of reputation (NPCs could make custom remarks based on your race and deeds); - being able to equip both cloak and an amulet at the same time; - being able to assign the same weapon to different weapon sets; e.g. being able to swap from wielding single 1h to the same 1h+shield.

Out of curiosity, would anyone be interested in DA:O style party AI, as a stretch goal? It was a great feeling, controlling mostly your MC but still have your team act as a single unit.

Completely agree on everything above. PoE needs more transparent mechanics, more detailed and accurate tooltips plus richer combat log. Preferrably with a toggle option for periodic damage. This way it will be possible to both avoid log spam or check all the damage instances when needed. Not to mention that doing all this will help in revealing some of bugs and idiosincrasies earlier and would lead to a more consistent code. Also I would heavily advocate towards keeping current: - Attack Resolution system - Build diversity emerging (not only from class/talents but also) from attributes/weapons combination - Intrinsic diminishing returns for attributes instead of Tyranny-like soft-gating at 20 - Attack/Recovery system (with minor tweaks, specifically: recovery_factor set to 1 instead of 1.2; and update to speed UI types) If needed I could elaborate further on the 'why' part.

Why not use both ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So much this. I'd love to make the first playthrough with Russian localization. But if it would be text only - reading one thing and hearing another - would be a nuisance, so would just revert to English. As for stretch goals, it would be great to have some sort of property management, at least akin to NWN2 Crossroad Keep, where you had multiple mutually-exclusive upgrade options, which you could tailor under own needs. Another goal could be "enchant crafting system" similar to Tyranny's "spell crafting system". Each weapon having a certain enchant-capacity. Each enchant having a capacity cost. A new skill "enchantment" being able to a bit decrease these costs; so a skillful enchanter could squeeze in a more powerful combination of effects.

So... who's responsible for game mechanics, attributes tuning plus class and encounter balance?

Interesting... why does J.Sawyer post on somethingawful, but never appears on PoE official forums... I haven't played during beta, but judging by update notes, it is. Attributes were tuned up. Enemies got better AI, plus some of them have specific immunities. Combat became more balanced and diverse.

An offtank spellcaster specialized on crowd-control. Think of something like: 2/14/14/19/19/10 wizard or 2/15/7/20/19/15 chanter, wild-orlan with small shield and a hatchet, or utility weapon. Add there defensive talents, plus Aspirant's Mark, Enigma's Charm and paralysis scrolls, and there you go. Tbh, I always found it weird when a warrior was tanking something big, say a dragon; risking being smashed like a can. It was especially funny to see a gnome warrior in WoW, being the size of boss' toe, taking the hit. Imho, 'realistically' speaking, warriors and plate+shield wearers should tank enemies of relatively equal size, mostly humanoids. While evasive, jumping from point-to-point rogues, covered by deflection shields cast by their supportive spellcasters, should "tank" (read keep enemy's attention) when it is something really big.

I suppose Envenomed Strike working with Blast or Spirit Lance was indeed not intended. But not putting that in update notes or nerfing Pain Link is indeed mean Also, tbh I would expect Envenomed Strike to work with Kallakoth's Minor Blights, as that wand attacks everyone in AoE directly. But nope, that' also doesn't work.

^ 3-4 wizards can work fine. Get a main-tank paladin, priest, 2 control-freak wizards (1h+shield, cc-offtanks) and two blasting wizzies with duplicated Golden-Gazes. As for O.T: 1. two priests sound really fine. They will buff the team twice as fast and start dishing their aoe damage way sooner (shinning beacons + cleansing flames are a super strong combination). 2. personally I don't like the idea of having two fighters in a team. I am fine with having one dps oriented if it's my main. Otherwise I have a feeling there are stronger alternatives. 3. gunpowder team for me wound be: 1 chanter + pallegina + 4 rangers. Later on, rangers could become frontliners, encased in plate and all with quick switch + powder burns if you want maximum burst (~4x300 cone aoe), and don't mind switching micro.

I have made few tests just a minute ago (v3.05): - A single wizard can have a single Wall of Flames (from spell) at a time. Previous one will dissipate. (two wizards can have two). - A single character can have multiple Wall of Flames (from scrolls) at a time. Previous ones will NOT dissipate. - Wall of Flames interruption is bugged - as it doesn't add caster's perception at all. - 3-5 Wall of Flames + Combusting Wounds really deal lots of damage - Pain Link radius is really small - Pain Link (when standing in own Wall of Flames) only deals 1 instance of damage per 3 instances of wall of flames - Pain Link does NOT trigger Combusting Wounds Similar thing with Ectopsychic Echo. Send an Animal Companion, or summon a figurine or Essential Phantom behind the enemies line, cast Echo on it, and follow up with Mental Binding. Enemies are now stuck/paralyzed in place and also have great reflex malus. And there is also a bonus: with multiple ciphers it looks like ghostbusters.

I was just thinking of a control-freak frontliner (dumped MIG, maxed PER/INT wizard or chanter) and what else besides body-blocking and cc he can do. One high-MIG character casts Combusting Wounds, while the freak spams walls of fire, for both interruption and combusting procs. Now, if he would be buffed with Pain Link, he would be able to enter and stand in these walls of fire himself, and double the combusting proc rate, and even x2 interruptions (if pain link does it).

Btw, can damage reflected via Pain Link cause interrupt?

Weren't paladin and wizard best candidates for this achievement? Well, priest once he gets to level 7, is nice too. As for frenzy/hp thing, iirc you can still mouseover your character in combat and see the 'color' of your endurance (yellow for injured, red for critical injured).

Confirming. It was reported few months ago, but still no luck \