Silvaren

Both Inquisition and Androemda have companions sidequests and those are at the similar level as the sidequests about main cast of Witcher 3. Andromeda is obviously better than Inquisition. DAI has little to no itneresting sidequests outside of Inquisitor's inner circle. While in Andromeda most sidequests build upon few themes of the game, bringing another brick in the wall of consistent world. There are ofcourse companions' sidequests - up to 1 hours long with cutscenes, combat, choices. There are planetary stories - which add to the worldbuilding and overall multithread story. There are sidequests about few groups in Andromeda - initiative, outlaws, resistance, roekaar, kett, remnents. Some are bigger, some smaller, but they are intertwined. Execution is mixed in quality, as it is in Witcher 3 - it's still the same scheme - go from point A to point B and pick one of binary choice. Story in Witcher 3 is about Geralt searching for Ciri (deja vu). It's simple, antagonists are flat - as same as surface of the story in Inquisition and Andromeda. But it's the difference between working on someones IP and working on your own IP. BioWare have paradoxaly greater creative freedom than CDP Red. They own THE Dragon Age Setting (in short - THEDAS), they own Mass Effect Universe. They can do whatever they want. When CDP Red was limited with Witcher's world - and Sapkowski himself said that this world is only a background to the story and this is why he wasn't bothering with drawing a map. Witcher's world is only a background. There is no story in it other than "the plot". Geralt is searching for Ciri, some side threads are in the background, the world is a background. In Inquisition and Andromeda on other hand - there is metaplot, there are stories which add worldbuilding. There are mysterious of the settings. In Witcher 3 it's hard to be surprised from the story or the world (at least if you are familiar with the books). THEDAS and ME Universe are expanding. Under the sufrace of cliche plot about saving the world from demons (Inquisition) or colonisation effort (Andromeda) there are metaplots - histories building upon huge lore. And all those little sidequests (in Andromeda for example) bring some hints to story of the world. Plot of Mass Effect Andromeda is more complex than people used to say, but it's hidden everywhere in the game. In planetary story missions, in sidequests, in little notes, datapads, on the map of the Heleus Cluster. I found some interesting analysis of the C&C in games on MrBtongue's channel on yt. Good desinged choice are those which work as the cause and effect chain of events. Good C&C work as simiulation in the world, logical outcomes. Butterfly effect style of C&C is often artificial for the sake of "big surprise". Once again I'll bring first Fallout - if you buy water from merchants to make them deliver it to the Vault, to the hidden location of the Vault 13, Unity Forces will find the Vault quicker. Cause and effect. Contruary, the simple example of artificial C&C is the ending of Witcher 3. There are 5 basicaly random choices during interactions with Ciri which determine the outcome of entire game - no matter how you will act you have to gain certain number of points out of 5 maximum points. Is it simulation? Is it cause and effect? Witcher 3 has the same illusion of choice which can be found in other AAA games of this genre. Seriously, PoE 1 and Deadfire, TToN, Age of Decadence have bigger reactivity than Witcher 3. Great panel about C&C and writing in games was presented by Josh Sawyer during GDC:

Maybe I wasn't clear with my thoughts. As game Witcher 3 is borring and repetetive. During combat you can use fast attack, strong attack and optional whirl. You can use only three types of attacks during entire 100+ game and all weapons work the same. Signs doesn't matter much because you can't build character as mage, the have auxiliary role and when I was playing the game on hardest difficulty I used Quen 99% of the time. There is no "gamechangers" in combat because all weapons work the same way (difference is only in stats) and you have only 2 types of attacks + whirl. Even character progression is dumb because you won't learn new mechanics other than minor changes in using signs (which on hardest difficulty are pointless with except of Quen and situational Yrden or Axii). You don't learn new things, you only get % bonuses to stats. And when you learn enemies' animations after 15-20h combat stays borring to the end. I had to seek overleveled monsters with red skull to have any challenge. As roleplay Witcher 3 is just bad. BioWare's games have in some way defined character but in both Mass Effect series and Dragon Age series player have much more freedom in conversations. Conversation wheel gives players more option to choose than conversations in Witcher 3, while people are constantly whining about how dumbed down is conversation wheel. From the point how conversation are constructed it's even more dumbed down in Witcher 3. And yes, games I mentioned before are much better in terms of conversation and role playing. In games made by Obsidian, Harebrained Schemes, Iron Tower, InXile, Stygian Software or Larian player have much more options to: 1. Express your character, 2. express your agenda, 3. affect conversation via dialog choices 4. affect the world via dialog choices 5. use character's stats and abilities to get different results in different situation 6. all options give player additional solutions to quests or encountered problems. Quest design in Witcher 3 is terrible what means it's typical AAA cRPG. Player is led by the hand from point A to point B (Wticher senses) and find binary choice at the end. Games made by Obsidian, Harebrained Schemes, Iron Tower, InXile, Stygian Software or Larian player can chose different path, different way to solve the problem. Actually there are multiple solutions to most quests. Interplay's Fallout in 1997 gived players higher standards than Witcher 3 in 2015. Players could rescue Tandi in seven different ways. Players acted like they wanted. Vault dweller didn't have Witcher senses to follow throughout straight line. Play both Pillars, Torment Tides of Numenera, Wasteland 2, Age of Decadence, Shadowrun Dragonfall and Shadowrun Hong Kong and you will find more reactivity, more choices and non-linear quest design than in Witcher 3. And then compare the scale of sidequests from Witcher 3 to sidequests from Baldur's Gate II or Pillars of Eternity series. Show me sidequest in Witcher 3, where player can explore completly optional, huge, multi-leveled area with memorable characters and self contained storyline for 2-3 hours with fights, conversations, riddles, secrets and treasures. Show me in Witcher 3 equivalent of quests like The Cult of the Eyless, De,arnise Keep, Windspear Hills, Umar Hills with Temple Ruins, Planar Sphere, Sahuagin City, Watcher's Keep... Entire chapter in Underdark was optional in BG 2 because player could kill silver dragon end leave Underdark. Show me in Witcher 3 equivalent of quests like those in Raedric Hold, Fort Deadlight, Old City, Drowned Barrows... Sidequests in Witcher 3 are short. Main characters get maybe 1 hour-long. It's funny how people say "every sidequest in Witcher 3 tell the story". Isn't that obligatory for the cRPG genre? Seriously is it a new standard? Didn't you play any cRPG before 2015? As story Witcher 3 gives deja vu for anyone who read the novels. Hypothetically - if you switch writers in game with Andrzej Sapkowski but the story remains the same, you could call it self-plagiarism, a salad out of old lettuce (if I used correct idiom, you know, I'm from Poland and in our country we say literally - reheated chop). Some characters are twisted, Triss for example. Imho she was ruined by CDP Red. She manipulated Geralt in the way she didn't act like that in the books. And when she admittted to this during one conversation I coudn't chose my answer because the game was running that conversation on railroads! Great role playing, trully. New standards. Ofcourse you can praise how well developed are characters in Witcher 3 but in fact it's not CDP Red thing but Andrzej Sapkowski. Then if you say that Witcher 3 is better than other AAA cRPG - I would say that even Inquistion, Andromeda or dumbed down Fallouts from Bethesda in some ways are better (character progression system, itemisation, combat mechanics) and in other ways the same (quest design, certain characters sidequests). But Witcher 3 as other AAA cRPG is way below standards set by Interplay in the 90. and uphold by Obsidian, Harebrained Schemes, Iron Tower, InXile, Stygian Software and Larian. Slasher/shooter with movie style sotrytelling are just more popular than niche cRPG with player's freedom in complex construction of content. EDIT: And all activities on the map, so called "points of interest" in Witcher 3 are just fillers. Pointless open world in sake of open world because they are popular and easy to sell. Jason Schreier wrote interesting thing in "Blood, sweat and pixels" about Witcher 3 development. CDP Red run out of ideas to fill the game with interesting content somewhere in the middle of the process. So even exploration is borring and repetetive. Yet people will say that open wolrd in Witcher 3 is the best ever. Great taste!

I use Aloth's. New unique spells are great, but there will be some for sure.

VGA is just stupid. Take 2015 for example. Best RPG category with Bloodborne and Witcher 3 but without Age of Decadence, Shadowrun Dragonfall DC and Underrail. And the winner was Witcher 3 with pointless open world and linear quest design, binary choices and rather small reactivity, almost non-interactive dialogs without roleplay options and with less lines to pick than provides BioWare's wheel. And they call it "story driven rpg" while at least 70% of the game is focused on pointless combat with trashmobs, borring point of (no) interest aka "?" and short sidequest - few minutes long with NPCs whoes name no one remembers. And the combat - you have many "different" swords, all have the same attack animation - and people hated that in first Mass Effect where every weapon had the same feeling. No game changers throughout entire game. And most people say Witcher 3 set new standards for entire RPG genre... You guys remember side quests in Baldur's Gate II? Those set standarda. They were like huge, separated storylines. The same goes with Pillars 1&2 but even better in construction - multiple entry points, multiple solutions, it's just non linear design of quests. It's like BG scale with Fallout design rules. I think those are great standards. Reactivity in Pillars, Age of Decadence, Tides of Numenera or Shadowrun series. Tim Cain said beautiful thing in the video about joining Microsoft. Some called RPG story driven games. "Obsidian makes player driven story". I'm sad because of sale numbers of Pillars 2. And VGA is terrible. It isn't about the best, but only about the most popular titlea. 2014 looked the same in RPG category.

I wished the option to become lich but it's probably too hard to implement and rather bad choice from the story perspective and reactivity.

I would like to see great looking archmage's robe to wear by my wizard with cool stuff that rarely occures like for example every time you cast the spell wearing that robe you have 15% to restore 1 usage of spell from random PL you already casted during the combat. It seems high enough but there is very limited number of casts per combat so not great number of chances to trigger that effect. Consumable item from explosives type - Ondra's Touch - acc vs will, if hit targets loses all resources (from the pool used for active abilities) - or arcane dumpener grenades.

I think new subclasses will be new. Companions and sidekicks should stay unique. It makes sense that there will be new priest of Woedica as playable subclass but no priest of Rymrgand because that role is filled by Vatnir. Players can download proper mods to play some of existing subclasses. I wonder how playing priest of Woedica will affect dialogs and the story. There are few quests when it can provide unique interactions. I guess we coudn't play as priest of Woedica in PoE 1 because of the main story.

I hope one of the subclasses will be a wild mage or some kind of necromancer for wizard. I'm not sure about wild magic, but necromancy occures on Eora (quest in catacombs in PoE 1 or you know - Concelhaut). Wild magic could fit with Power Level mechanic. Some kind of flexible, unpredictable bonus or penalty to PL while using abilities or spells. I guess it's too late for such sugestions ;p Woedica's challenge seems cool. Ondra's and Wael too. And omg, that first screenshot. It's like the view taken from mysterious ancient labirynths on planet Hyperion (by Dan Simmons) or final visit on the Citadel in Mass Effect 3.

It makes sense. I can't convince myself to use adventurers. I always go with companions or even sidekicks.

I wonder. You are testing your characters for somw time, use console commands to speed up the proces or you are playing through enitre game with all those builds?

Does Soul Annihilation apply to AoE from Spirit Lance or the main target only?

Maybe it isn't the most effective way but most of my characters have higher Dex than Might. I go for Per > Dex > Int > Mig most of the time. Strange habit from Tyranny. I just don't feel bonus from average Might to be significant and I rarely put it to maximum value. I have similar habit from Lineage 2 (but there wasn't any stat distribution with exception of bonuses from tattoos). For some classes based on regular attack for dealing damage it was like: higher attack speed = more attacks in certain period of time = more opportunities to score critical hits. I should probably use some DPS calculator for Deadfire or sit down and do the math. Anyway, thanks for hint with Soulblade. Actually it's probably the only subclass of cipher which have sense while combined with wizard since damge from spells don't generate focus. I had fun with soulblade during the beta.

Terrifying effects are OP in most fights. I'm playing pure illusionist currently. With few items boosting PL of illusion spells and metamagic ability to change radius of AoE spells I'm able to lock down most of combatants while rest of the party deal damage. I'm thinking now about monk/wizard or fighter/wizard with Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage and Zandethus' Draconic Fury along with other inspirations and protection spells.

Anyone tested this spell? It seems like great addition to repertoire for wizard multiclassed with some martial class. Even if it comes near the endgame.

It's sad ;< So I guess I will start over with that Magran/Evoker or Nalpazca/Troubadour. Maybe I should hire adventurers to test more builds at the same time.

I'm thinking about thematic fire build and with Sun & Moon combined with Magran's Favor and Firethrower's Gloves it seems to be no-brainer. I wonder if is it worth to pick Priest of Magran/Evoker for greater variety and larger use of offensive spells with "fire" keyword and playing this character as damage dealer only? Or is it better to go full Priest of Magran or full evoker? Both have some "empty" PL like wizard's PL 6 or 8 without any fire spell. Sure, there are some awesome spells on those PL but without "fire" keword. On the other hand multiclassinng prevent from using Heand of Weal and Woe, Symbol of Magran and Magran's Might or in case of pure evoker - Meteor Shower. Not to mention lower bonuses from max PL. Second thought is about build dealing passive damage. I'm thinking about nalpazca/troubadour with Rooting Pain, Soft Winds of Death or Dragon Trashed, with Blackened Plate Armor upgraded to Usher's Visage. I know that Dragon Trashed is weaker than in PoE 1 but I'm thinking about party with all companions/sidekicks who can multiclass with chanter (Pallegina, Konstanten, Fassina, Tekehu). I'm currently playing as unbroken/trickster stacking deflection for riposte, leveling until I get One Dozen Stood for disengagement attacks. I'm not sure if is it possible, but I'll try to exploit Terrified affliction to make enemies run away from my tank for free disengagement attacks. Anyone tried some of these ideas before?

Yeah I managed to split-pull 2 panthers with 1 wurm and drake at the same time then finish the rest at the center of dig site.

1. Fighting with 2 beettles pulled few skeletons, revenant and rotghast at the same time (those monsters were guarding bottom right corner of the map on the platform with locked chest. After dealing with that group I noticed that combat music didn't end. I run to Beodul. 2. Skeletons (those who guard wooden bridges in the cave) were attacking Beodul, so I rescued him but he just said the thing he is saying when you deal with the traps and left the area, while the traps were still there. 3. Engaging in combat in flooded street area in Port Maje pull all groups together. 4. Engwitan digsite ended up pulling all boars, panthers, wurms and drake at the same time each time I tried split-pull enemies. Using choke point near the ladder makes that combat doable but it's still a nightmare.

to clarify -- the looters can be separated, and if you didn't manually separate them before, you fought them all at once. This was true pre-3.1, and can confirm with my very new run that they can still be separated into separate encounters. I coudn't split-pull them so I just rush with Eder to the bottom right corner of the map while sneaking rest of te party to confront Ilari. Eder's armor is nice diversion.

I was surprised in the cave in Vilario's Rest, when during the very first fight with two beettles I faced few skeletons, Revenant and Rotghast at the same time (those monsters were guarding that upper platform with the chest in the bottom right corner of the map prior to 3.1). You know what, this happened to me too on a new playthrough. I wonder if this pulling behavior is actually just a bug? Because it seems weird to want to make Vilario's Rest any harder. It's much easier than drake in engwitan dig site with all boars, panthers and wurms at the same time, but I found nice spot to beat them. Only that drake with breath attack can be painful. Maybe it is better to hire some adventurers instead of going only with Eder and Xoti.

I was surprised in the cave in Vilario's Rest, when during the very first fight with two beettles I faced few skeletons, Revenant and Rotghast at the same time (those monsters were guarding that upper platform with the chest in the bottom right corner of the map prior to 3.1).

I started new run on 3.1 patch. I noticed that some beasts (wurms) get enrage after killing one of them and they gain inspirations for each kil. It looks like Galawain's Challenge but I'm sure I didn't pick any challenge nor blessing. It's pure PotD run. Is it itended?

I have the same problem any time I level up my characters, weapons disappear.

Do you want atomic bomb? Here we go: Feargus Urquhart's firm called Dark Rock Industries Limited have rights to Pillars of Eternity franchise as card game, RPG and computer games. I guess it's "the Llengrath's Safeguard" for Pillars of Eternity. Consider this: Feargus was CEO of Black Isle (cell of Interplay focused on cRPG genre). They published Baldur's Gate and produced Fallout 1 & 2, Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale series. After fall of Interplay rights for AD&D products have gone to Atari, rights for Fallout was bought by Bethesda. Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky, Jason Anderson formed Troika Games. They produced Arcanum, The Temple of Elemental Evil, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. Arcanum was published by Sierra and after shutdown of Sierra the rights for Arcanum have gone to Activision. Activision isn't interested in that franchise itself or selling the rights. ToEE was owned by Atari. Paradox Interactive bought White Wolf so they have rights to entire World of Darkness. Obsidian was formed. They did 2 sequels to BioWare's games. KotOR II was published by LucasArts (which was shutdown by Disney and Disney has licences agreements with EA). NWN 2 and its expansions was properties of Atari. Then Obsidian made Alpha Protocol, which was published by SEGA. Chris Avellone wrote design documents for sequel but SEGA wasn't interested in making that game. Obsidian made spin-off to their old franchise of Interplay - Fallout: New Vegas (Tim Cain - father of Fallout works in Obsidian since Troika went down) for Bethesda. Obsidian made Dungeon Siege III for Square Enix. And they made South Park: The Stick of Truth for UbiSoft. And funny fact - rights for Tyranny are owned by Paradox Interactive. They lost rights for every fracking game that Feargus Urquhart and most of his coworkers made since 1997 to this very day. There is Pillars of Eternity ofcourse. But it isn't owned by Obsidian but - like I mentioned - Dark Rock Industries Limited, which is owned by Feargus Urquhart. I gues it's clever protection for the franchise. If Obsidian goes down by bankruptcy or by hostile takeover etc., rights for Pillars of Eternity won't be lost. Feargus can gather poeple and make great come back with well known series. It has even more sense now, when all the rumors about Microsoft buying Obsidian are flying arround. Dark Rock (Industries Limited) sounds pretty similar to Black Isle, you know? https://trademarks.justia.com/owners/dark-rock-industries-limited-3316531/

I would recommend you to select her as a full cipher... what I did was that using dual maces and superb war bow... set her as a charming and dominating specific having all the charming, damaging and controlling skills + the cipher passive skills for penetration. I did this because I needed her for the beast of winter quest and one of the hardest things of this request was killing the messenger. he had a risen paladin with great buff and constitution, also had great mind defenses so I had this great cipher which dominated this minion and put the messenger to fight it... it was great... Controlling enemies is always fun in PoE. Good for solo runs.