PangaeaACDC

I'm one of those weird knobs who don't like Priests all that much. It's probably because I don't know how to use them well, and also because I'm playing on Normal/Hard. Currently I'm playing a party without a Priest and without a Chanter, and doing more than fine. One of the strengths of this game is that you can play with pretty much any party composition and still do well. Quite frankly, I'm not a fan of all the talk about efficiency and DPS and such that so many gaming forums contain. This is a ROLE playing game, so I'm glad we can do that without being overly punished for just wanting to have fun and fool around. Combat isn't what I enjoy most with this game anyway - maybe I'm odd that way.

Thanks. I've gone with Armored Grace, and hopefully it will turn out a good choice. I like Clear Out too, but oddly enough, one thing I don't like with it is the knock-back effect (which needs to be there given the name). Little off-topic, but what level does the Visceris NPC in Defiance Bay have? After killing a bunch of stuff so far, including Greater Blights and the Dweller, that chap is still our 'best' kill according to group stats. Just by sheer luck I found out he had a rather nice helmet in the previous playthrough, for a time I wanted to kill off every single backer NPC, so I wanted to see if it was random or not. It isn't, we got the Stag Helmet again. He barely turned red before dropping dead, so I find it odd he has so many levels to trump everything else we have come across so far.

My main character is a fighter who is dual wielding war hammers, and he's dealing out some serious damage already, particularly from knock-downs (with two brutal attacks). I'm ready to level up again, and am wondering: Is Armored Grace worth it? Or am I better off picking something else, like Clearout or Unbending?

I'm actually glad they dropped the random encounters on travel and rest. Particularly for how I always play these games, with resting only when we HAVE TO, and not every 5 meters of progress like some do, we could end up in a sleep or die situation pretty quickly if the random creatures happened to be rough bastards. If you were travelling in certain parts of the BG world, you could end up fighting basillisks (good luck surviving that unprepared) or a bunch of wyverns. In Wasteland 2, all the random encounters were really annoying. You could have just fought off one lot, wander a small piece across the world map towards your destination, and then another lot surprises you. At least you could choose to avoid it if you invested points into a skill -- but the only reason to take that skill to begin with was to avoid the random encounters, so it was kind of silly. Also, there were very few maps of the random kind, so it got old very quickly. A massive time-sink too. (That said, in W2 there were a few truly unique ones too, so it can be done in a good way.) Therefore I'm glad Obsidian dropped this for PoE. It may be less realistic, especially when you sleep next to a room of bad guys in a dungeon, but the game is more fun that way in my opinion.

You are right, that once you get to this point, it will be obvious (or should be) that there is no returning. Thanks for the details I've forked out for the expansion and installed it now. Could load the save fine at least. But because I have not played that far into the game yet (or rather, taken different paths there), it's not possible to go to the White March areas yet. Hopefully it will work out fine once I do. And as we're ready to level up to 7, maybe we ought to visit a certain Temple and get to work. I'm a sucker for items and lore, so I hope some of the gear in WM will be to my liking When it comes to weapon enchanting. Getting excellent grade is fine and doable for many in the base game, but superb... you can basically forget about that due to the ingredients. Will this be the same with WM, so that you can still only get a small handful of items upgraded to Superb (or better)? I've heard about another rather decent forge in the expansion, do these upgrades occupy many "slots"? Whatever the answers to these questions are, I'm quite eager to play the game again now, as there is fresh content to look forward to. Almost a shame I have a job these days :D

Me neither. Every time I try to watch anything there, it's only marginally less painful than trying to cut off your ballsack.

Don't have the expansion yet, but see it's 40% off at GOG right now, so I'm tempted due to playing the game currently. If I buy the expansion and 'upgrade' my game, will I be able to take the current non-WM party into White March? I hope it's not necessary to start a new party. Also, how does the thing work -- as in how do I get to the new areas and quests, when can I do it (level) and when is it recommended to do it? How should I progress with the ending or progression in terms of main game content and White March content? Is it included kind of like the BG2 expansion, as a standalone after the main story, or is it more like in BG1, where it's part of the main campaign, sort of, and the game rolls credits when you beat the 'normal' campaign? Hope that was understandable, even with a convoluted language

Don't get me wrong, I can see why it's annoying, but I also think this might be a case of the small minority being overly vocal about it. That said, in general I think one of the underwhelming aspects of the game is the lack of weapons or items that 'feel' awesome, like for instance some gear in BG. Of course, that could kind of be a strength too, in the sense that you don't HAVE TO get that super-duper-awesome weapon, and just about any build is doable. But it also makes the game kind of pedestrian, if you get my meaning. I guess there isn't a perfect way to do it, and I simply miss that feeling from BG of getting that weapon that truly felt fantastic. Nothing in this game really works that way, though that is also down to how stats/attributes work. Whatever is the cause for the massive loading times, it better be sorted out for PoE2. If Unity is so inefficient, I don't see the reason to use it. Okay, it's cheap and accessible, but Obsidian isn't making games out of their basement.

Interestingly I tried basically the same process, but with sound files, at more or less the same time. The recipe I came up with looks very similar. https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/86120-looking-for-soundtrack-files-with-tags-etc/?p=1862771 This probably isn't the easiest game to mod, but it would be fun to see a good modding community pop up, beyond just avatars. Maybe tools such as UABE can help in that endeavour.

Don't really get the big upset about the nerfing of a weapon that the base game doesn't even contain. (But for that reason, I've never tried it either, so don't know how good it was, or if it was overpowered). Happened to come across a little bug yesterday, on 3.04. In one of the early-ish levels of Cuad Nua (the one with many xaurips and wurms), there was a bit battle close to a trap, and I tried to use Hiravias to disable the trap during the battle. For some reason he got stuck in place, and couldn't move, not after combat was over either. The trap wasn't disabled, but still glowed red on the floor. I couldn't get him to move no matter what. Saved the game and reloaded it, and that sorted him out. So little point in sending it in as it probably won't reproduce. I'm still pretty early in this playthrough, but there is already quite a few seconds to wait every time the game loads anything. This is *THE* thing that needs to be improved - lots - for PoE2. You could release the exact same game with a different story and location for all I care, and I'd probably buy it as long as loading doesn't take a stupid amount of time every time you enter a door, new area, whatever. Like written in some other place, pretty soon it feels like half your time with the game is spent staring at that damn loading screen

This is something I've always wondered about, so here it goes: Does your Beastiary fill up quicker if the character making kills has a high(er) Lore skill? As in, if e.g. a Lore 5 guy kills all your Black Oozes or whatever, will you need fewer kills to get all the stats, HP and abilities and such for them, compared with a Lore 0 guy making the kills? In my mind this would be logical, but has the game implemented it like this?

Yes. Yes! YES!!! Thank you soooooooooo much for putting me on the right track by mentioning the file names Finally found a way to do it, the game doesn't crash, and best of all, the laughing man is sitting silent and sulking in a corner. Woot!! Thanks also goes to DerPopo from here, although he'll never see this post of course. That link contains the last but vital step. [Edit: Not sure if there is an easy and fast way to search through the content of large amounts of files in Windows, but in Linux this can be done with the grep command in terminal. I navigated to the PillarsOfEternity_Data folder and ran this command grep -r "drunk_people" * It takes a little while as there are some pretty big files to search through, but you will get a list of the files that contains this phrase within all files and sub-folders. So when I initially searched for "laughter", there were a fair few instances of "laughter" and "slaughter" from conversation files. [/Edit] Here is the recipe for doing this. Hope it helps somebody else: Download and extract Unity Asset Bundle Extractor (UABE) Open the asset file that you need, which in this case is sharedassets2.assets View -> Search by name -> Enter *drunk_people* and hit F3 until you find the sound files you want to remove from the game. "amb_os_drunk_people_04" is the worst by some distance, but I also removed ...02, ...05 and ...06. DO NOT remove them by hitting the "Remove" button at the bottom of the screen. This crashed the game on my end (in hindsight, it *might* work if you only do it from sharedassets2.assets, because I did it in all 4 assets files, and that messed up their sizes when I saved them). Instead, click "Export Dump", which saves the file as a .txt file. Open the file in Notepad or whatever, and change "int size" to 0. The line will then state e.g. "0 int size = 0". Before the edit, the parameter will be as big as the size of the array (which presumably contains the actual sounds). Save the .txt file. Click "Import Dump" in UABE and import the edited .txt file. I think you need to have the right 'line' selected in UABE, for instance where "amb_os_drunk_people_04" is listed, so the import goes to the right spot (but I'm not sure about this, the program may simply import the .txt to the right spot anyway, based on the parameters). Click "OK" at the bottom of the UABE screen, and you should get a popup box asking you to save (or simply choose "Save" from the File menu). You need to pick a different name, as the program can't overwrite the file itself. Make it simple, and for instance save it to (in this case) sharedassets2_.assets (with the underscore, or some other character of your choosing) Swap the filenames around, by giving the original file a different name (and back it up, just in case), and giving your saved .assets file the name of the original file, in this case sharedassets2.assets (remove the underscore from before). The sound file should now in effect be removed from the game. This should work for all sound files. As mentioned I removed 4 files, and after hanging around the Copperlane inn for a few minutes, no laughing jackass could be heard, and that usually happens within about 3 seconds (on a good day). I therefore think this workaround actually works As you can see from the attached image, if you hit "View Data" in UABE, the array in the file appears to be gone, with no items listed, and the size at 0. Previously there was a massive list of array items, which was in the range of 15-30,000 for these relatively small sound files. I'm so happy this succeeded, because now I can enjoy wandering around the inns and brothels and so forth without wanting to throw the computer out the window, or needing to mute the sound while in there (because I kinda need the computer). (Of course I hope there won't be some type of knock-on effect, like the computer catching Ebola and the population in northern Europe dying off as a result of this move. No guarantees )

Bit of a detective work Via grep command in Linux I managed to find out where the files are stored. They're in level114, sharedassets2.assets, sharedassets7.assets, and resources.assets. No sign of the "...inn_laughter.." files, but there are 11 of them, so at a guess it's the same or renamed "drunk_people" files. Tracked down a program called Unity Asset Bundle Extractor (UABE). It's for Windows so I had to run it via VirtualBox. It worked fine, however, and I managed to extract the sound files and play them in VLC. The "os_laughter" files seem fine, they aren't so "in your face". Many of the "drunk_people" files seem fine too. It is especially "drunk_people_04" that I'd like to put 6 feet miles under. The bad news is I have no idea how to actually remove them from the game. I did try to simply remove them from the asset files in UABE. The game started up, but instantly crashed to desktop when I tried to load a save. I tried to put the edited/muted .ogg files themselves in the "/PillarsOfEternity_Data/assetbundles/override" folder, but that didn't have any effect. Expected tbh, but it was worth a shot. There is a worldmap file though, so maybe the game can somehow understand things there. If it needs .unity3d files, I don't know how to convert .assets files to that. There is an edit function for the sound files within UABE, but it can only change parameters. I've effectively muted the file with Audacity, but don't know how it would be possible to somehow get this edited file back into the asset. So, is there anything in the screenshot that might mute the file? Or do anybody have some other idea to go about this business?

Thanks. That sounds like a good idea. Will need to find something ranged for Hiravias. What do you recommend, and are the wildstrike talents I picked for him useless then, if they only work while shapeshifted? Still useful if he gets a chance to go melee ofc. Like the idea of using Pallegina as a gunner at first, then letting her go into melee range. I'm thinking with a sabre + Outbuckler. We're level 5 now, so am thinking of doing some levels of Cuad Nua, and picking up Resolution. There aren't many Blunderbusses around from what I recall, and I had intended to let Grieving Mother use one too, but she could always sport a Pistol, or I can enchant a "vanilla" one, if we find more. Don't have much time to play due to long work days, but will get in a couple of hours today and start to put these things into action. Hopefully won't miss Durance too much. Always nice to have a priest around if you find yourself in a pinch.

Thanks, a lot to think about and consider in there, and I'm intrigued at equipping Pallegina with something else than a great sword. She can't get Ryona's Vambrace - I looked it up and it's a White March item. What does FoD mean? The Outbuckler looks like a sweeeet item, so I should probably go and pick it up. That, plus some one-hander, and she'll be pretty mean. A little downside to this party is that it's pretty crowded at the front, with soon four melee characters (main fighter, Eder, shapeshifted Hiravias, and Pallegina). Intended to use Pallegina as a tank/damage dealer, as she's adept at that, but if it continues to be a bit crowded, perhaps having her wreak havoc with ranged is better.

Hi Justin. Thanks for looking into it. Doesn't sound like there is likely to be a patch or workaround, nor that it's easy to find the file and delete it. If you hear anything, though, please let me know. Would love to get that guy out of the game Spent quite some time yesterday trying to find it, without any luck. Since you say it's not in that folder, my next bet would be in assetbundles/vo, unless that too is simply considered VO instead of sounds. There are some files with names such as barks and ambient. But these are unity files, with surely loads of content, so can't be deleted. Will have to continue to liberally use the mute button I guess, and try to prevent going into inns.

Discussion changed to about Charge, so figured I'd quote the post in case people missed it. Got any advice or comments about the party composition and weapon/talent choices? I particularly wonder about what to do with Hiravias and Pallegina. Haven't picked up Pallegina yet, but it was the intention.

Don't worry about the GOG patch, it is like JerekKruger said. GOG basically update the difference between the files, while Steam doesn't give a feck about gigantic files, so replace everything. Hence the massive difference in file size. I've just updated my own game with GOG's patch, and it states 3.04 in-game, and works as advertised. The patching takes a few minutes*, due to the above-mentioned process, so don't panic if it looks like the patching has stopped responding. *at least on Linux, which I have, but I assume it takes a little while on Windows too

Don't think I'll re-spec once again, as I've played further and hate to replay parts I've already gone through. Thanks for the advice to increase intelligence though. I can see the use in it now, particularly as I'm actively using Disciplined Barrage, which I hadn't even chosen before. I also like that the attributes are move evenly spread, although it comes at the cost of forgoing all conversation skills. Currently only playing on Normal, which guys can probably play blind, but Hard was a bit rough in places last time through, so figured I'll start on Normal and maybe up it later if it becomes too easy. Would be nice if you could offer some feedback on party composition and weapon choices. Have never played with Hiravias before, but think I will this time. Druid spells actually look pretty darn good, and there is some healing in there too. Thought currently are roughly: 1) Fighter dual wielding war hammers (main character). I'm thinking the weapon (soldier) specialisations, and probably Clear out. Have taken Into the fray before, but it was kind of 'meh' so may skip that one. Can be useful for messing up mages, though. Have taken Vulnerable Attack, which looks very useful, especially for a dual wielder. Later on will take Two weapon style, and Armoured Grace looks useful too. 2) Eder, which I previously have preferred to equip with shield and sword (Whispers of Yenwood). Am thinking the same again, as it's good equipment for a tank. 3) Aloth. Blast talents and eventually the soulbound scepter/rod/whatever. Really like the Haewanes and am glad it's available without White March. 4) Grieving Mother. Really like this mysterious character, and the Cipher. Guess she's not really sturdy enough to dual wield sabres for instance, so better to equip her with Blunderbus or Pistol. Didn't take the Antipathetic field as I always have problems with it busting up my own crew. Really wish these beams were Foe only. 5) Hiravias. Never used Druids in PoE, so unsure how best to use him, but the spells look pretty nice, and I like the sound of some of those damage spells. Am thinking he can be used as a healer of sorts too, as I've kicked out Kana and may go with Pallegina instead of Durance too (I like her). What are good weapon and talent/ability choices for him? So far I've taken the two fire-damage ones. Will use him for finding traps, as that fits from a RP perspective. Spear (and shield?) fits from a RP perspective too, so maybe that? 6) Pallegina. Think I've used a great sword on her previously, and may do that again, as it kind of fits. That would mean Eder as tank, and Pallegina and main guy as damage dealers up close and personal. I like 'passive' abilities for less micromanagement, so will probably go for Zealous Focus, and Inspiring Triumph is neat too. Without a priest, I should probably take Lay on Hands early on. Is Critical Focus and the faith talents worth it? Have taken them before, especially critical focus, but 5% isn't much...

Tested with paying for a re-spec (blowing all our money on it). Decent intelligence means better knockdowns and recovery, and slightly wider crucible of the soul -- but at the cost of every combat/defensive skill except will to be worse. Is that really worth it? Also means I can basically forget about conversation checks, unless metagaming hard and buffing something fierce. The character is a bit more balanced though. Currently have a great sword, and +2 dexterity gloves (and +5 to all four defensive skills)

Sounds like having low intelligence was a not-so-bright move. But I can always re-spec if it becomes too troublesome. Perhaps I should have evened it out with something else, like for instance 7 INT and 7 RES instead, since I kind of want to keep at least one conversation skill, and PER also gives accuracy bonus. I sort of like the low intelligence from a RP perspective, though. Will need to get some levels under the belt before making a decision I think. Am only level 3 so far, and have taken weapon focus soldier and confident aim. DR from Vulnerable attack looks very handy, so I'll pick up that at some point, preferably soon. Don't have White March, so can't use Charge if it's at level 13. Will probably buy it at some point, but not for full price (and never at shteam).

That's not an option. Currently I have to turn off the sound every time I go into an inn, or anywhere else that buffoon is omnipresent. Which obviously takes away quite a bit from the game, from voiced conversations and other background sounds. But it's either that (mute) or not play the game at all. Hence the request for a workaround. I hope there is one.

It would be a great pleasure if it was possible to get help with identifying which of the sound files is the laughing guy in inns and so forth. The guy does my head in, and I keep wishing it was possible to bash in his I'm looking at the "vocalization/vo wav files" folder and there are folders such as "defiance bay barks" and "defiance bay ambient". Every single file is 2.7kB, however, and when playing it in VLC or Audacity there is just a thud. Other files contain actual listenable sounds, like speeches by Durance, though I see these are in .ogg format. Is it possible to find this file so I can delete or mute it? Is there some program which might help? I'm on Linux btw, so getting Unity working is a pain (and Unity's darn big to boot).

Cheers guys. Good read that, and fairly close to what I had. Don't have White March so won't be able to pick some of the equipment, and I wouldn't be able to sacrifice Eder either, but a good guide nevertheless. Party could be pretty heavy on fighters with main guy, Eder and Pallegina, so will be interesting to see how that pans out. I was unsure whether to go for CON, PER or RES, but landed on PER for one speech skill (for RP reasons) and it also gives some combat benefits. I figured some extra accuracy could be useful. With the character being a fighter, endurance/health should still be okay. Main issue is the low intelligence and therefore very low Will. Bound to bite me in the arse, but then I always seem to struggle with Will anyway, so maybe it won't matter a great deal whether it sucks, or sucks a lot. Only arrived in Gilded Vale so don't even have war hammers yet, but I do look forward to see how this character pans out, and intend to do some role playing too, if I can force myself away from a goody-twoshoes approach. Btw: Confident Aim is fixed now, right? Would like to build this guy as a high-damage dealer, while Eder soaks up pressure, but prior to 3.04 I read Confident Aim was bugged to hell and back. Speaking of Modals, what do people prefer or suggest for a dual wielder?

Hi guys. Been thinking about having another go with the game lately, despite having an almost-completed Cipher going a few months back. Looked around the wiki and here, and oddly enough got a hankering for a fighter. Usually I prefer wizards as they can do more varied stuff. But fighters are all right too, if not as 'fun' to play (imo, of course). Been playing around with attributes and can't really decide on what's most sensible. Help? The idea is to have him dual wielding warhammers, with a nod towards Baldur's Gate. I like weapons with two damage types, so I can care less about immunities, and they look pretty sturdy. Some cracking unique ones too. Not a fan of not having "conversations skills", but can't get plenty there while keeping him a mean bastard. Am also worried about low Will, as a mind buggered mean fighter isn't fun to have ravaging your own party (like against those annoying insta-hitting "flowers"). I've pumped up Dexterity here, as I figured that even with decent armour, he can wield those hammers at a half-decent rate. Dumb as a brick, but something had to give Currently: MIG 20 CON 10 DEX 18 PER 16 INT 4 RES 10