anathanielh

To be fair, if Hiravias is his primary example of Orlans, then he was closer to an animal than most. And he may or may not have spent a lot of time actually being an animal around Eder. Obviously that's not the case if the Watcher is an Orlan, and Eder is kind of a racist asshat either way. People don't even have to have fur, and racists equate them with animals, because dehumanizing (dekithizing?) crap is par for that particular course... Still, Hiravias was an animal, and frankly depending on how your Serafen was spec'd a Barbarian/Pirate isn't going to necessarily be enough to change Eder's mind by himself. I'd expect that Eder and Mirke would have gotten along [had they been real people or Mirke gotten the full companion treatment]. Certainly I always thought of Eder himself as a druggie, at the very least I have given him the necklace that makes you wake up with Whiteleaf symptoms in every playthrough (not to wear, just to hold onto because I know he loves him some whiteleaf). Personally I like that the companions in Pillars of Eternity all have flawed personalities, and Deadfire is the same way (and accentuates old companions flaws in a new light.) Xoti is an inexperienced one might say naive and extremely impressionable young woman. Eder is arguably kind of simple, (possibly because he's such) a "fan" of Whiteleaf and a racist (although not a ... hylbyly?) yokel. Serafen and Mirke are pirates. Maya is ... willing to follow orders for a government whose actions are questionable. Pallegina is kind of a bitch to people who don't think the gods are ****, and she's far too willing to carry out orders on behalf of people who may have wronged her and have questionable motives. Tenahu is obviously egocentric and a hedonist, unsure of how he wants to use his power (full of himself, but oddly reticent to live up to his potential on his own.) Aloth is not good at being self-motivating, but he took a job that required more than he could give it on his own, and he was kind of a shady character in the first game. Even the sidekicks are kind of a bunch of misfits, found in the ocean, a soulless weirdo, (a pirate, I mentionedalready/only in DLC) and a... massage parlor employee? I never really got Konstanten because I never really kept him in my party to hear/see his barks and responses to things. Personally if I was the Watcher on the one character I kept her in (which I started and finished post-release of PoE2) I'd have treated Vela like a surrogate daughter or at least a much younger sibling. Honestly it never even occurred to me that I could have kept her, and I saw pre-release that it was an option but my characters all kind of had personalities from PoE1 so I didn't want to just go back and keep her even if such a thing could have been done easily in another save... My point is, my only Watcher who has her to notice anything about her is a kind of odd character. I wish Vela could have gotten (or even, would get eventually) some serious reactivity based on your actions in Pillars of Eternity. FFS, I'd have been -super- happy if Berath asked people who kept Vela "Do you remember the child you adopted?" and let me say "Her? I pawned her for armor polish money, I always need more armor polish!" Or, of course, sane things a sane person might have said about a child they kept. Or things a slaver-type might have said about their property I guess? They had such a nice bit of immediate backstory-filling in Pillars of Eternity with Calisca that seeing something like that would have been cool for PoE2's PoE1 reactivity IMO. It would be like several different sets of lines for the VA and writer of Vela, but I'd have loved to see that. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go pickpocket a child and replace her ripplesponge with some kind of vegetable. I've also got an old man to fire... out of a cannon. But doesn’t Eder love animals more than most people (Even when they’re trying to kill him). If anything, him thinking you’re an animal is a compliment in a way.

I think the animal companion even with all the buffs is pretty useless because it dies very quickly regardless (Based on veteran and potd gameplay)

My wizard (Aloth) in my frist run of PotD was powerful to me just because of chilling fog. Because it lasts a long time and hits multiple times, it didn’t matter if it didn’t hit them once or twice because they would be blinded (Blind is way too good in this game with that extra recovery time) sooner or later. (Unless they were immune or something) I just kept giving him spells that hit multiple times like ninagauths icy death beam and oil slick, and missing never mattered to me. Another good spell imo is Tayrn’s bouncy bull**** orb. If you empower that at the start of a fight, it will just bounce around and apply debuffs and good damage to everything (Especially with accurate empower) I think Wizards are powerful not because of damage, but because of basically infinite debuffs every fight.

This may be a bug, so it's probably best for this to be moved to the technical issues forum.

Runescape Classic has the best story of all RPGs ever created. You wake up in the room of an old guy on the mysterious Tutorial Island. From there your hero finds out more about the world around him, learning various tricks of the trade, including walking, fishing, mining, and more (If that’s not the greatest character development of all time to you, then you’re loony). After going through his/her trials on the island, they are transported to the mainland, where their journey to secure a membership and travel to locked off member-only areas finally begins. A massive open world game with intriguing npcs and monsters awaits. AND THE COMBAT!! What can I say? It’s the most thrilling, action packed combat I’ve ever experienced in my lifetime. Not only do the enemies throughout the game have the honor to duel you 1v1 at all times, but they are also manly enough to wait for you to hit them before they hit you back. This makes defeat all the more painful as you know that they were holding back their true strength. When one is ready to retire from their adventures, he/she can dabble in the growing yew log trade and secure enough finances to claim a home and start a family. This game truly was a gem of it’s time.

Runescape Classic was best.

As 1TTFFSSE said you can get them from Vailian bounty ships, but you’re better off using longer range cannons as they are more readily available and they are safer to use despite the few points lost i damage. Longer range cannons are especially useful against the ships of certain ships in the north that like to ram you. (Don’t want to say the name for the sake of spoilers)

This is an age-old discussion, and if you get more deeply into it, you'll realize that it's not like you said. Besides, we're not talking about ranking everything here. We're talking about two important titles in a niche genre, and I think it's a perfectly valid discussion. Or, if it doesn't seem valid for you, it's very simple to stay out of it. There's an argument to be made for the idea that "everything is just opinion and that's it", but then, if somebody really tried to claim that The Shaggs is better than The Beatles, or that James Patterson is better than Hemingway, or that Plan 9 From Outer Space is better than The Shining, I'm pretty sure that essentially everybody sane would question their capacity for reasonable judgement. So when you get down to it, it's not just opinions -- there are reasonable arguments to be made for why something is or isn't good. In my book, both PoE and BG2 are definitely good, even very good. It's just that BG2 is a couple of notches better, for reasons I've described above. Even with the examples you mention, I rather doubt it's quite so clear cut. I'd expect if you were to ask James Patterson fans (going by sales figures, there's a fair few of them) whether they prefer Hemingway or think Hemingway is better, the answer by and large will be 'no'. How you would then conclude from that that their ability to reason was impaired, I'm not sure. The problem that quickly arises in any of these discussions is that "what is better" supposes a set of criteria by which that is defined. But those criteria are rarely very explicitly articulated and people tend not to fully agree on what criteria ought to be used, yielding the frequently acrimonously and largely unproductive kinds of 'discussions' so common on the internet. I would say, reasonable arguments certainly can be made to an extent: given a largely agreed set of criteria, discussion of which work is superior can be quite fruitful. Or similarly, discussion on which work is superior in some particular aspect. And perhaps also discussion to an extent on the relevance and weight of specific qualities, given that more general criteria are more or less agreed. But where people fundamentally disagree on what qualities make a work good, such as we might expect to see with for example Hemingway afficionados versus Patterson fans, there isn't really any further norm to appeal to. They may well consider the other's treasured books to be trashy pulp and pretentious snobbery respectively, but it's essentially a stalemate; and anything beyond 'agree to disagree' and just enjoying whatever books you want to enjoy isn't going to get you anywhere. Which isn't going to stop these kinds of exchanges from happening, clearly. But I always wonder what people hope to accomplish with it. Sure, they can dig in and passionately defend why X is objectively (or at least very close to objectively) better than Y. Rally like-minded people around the argument, have a good verbal slugfest, maybe even 'win' the discussion. To what end, I do not know. A false sense of superiority perhaps. Personally, I would say: maybe people should try an actual discussion instead. One that is about actually exchanging ideas and opinions and arguments. Where the aim isn't to 'win' (whatever that means), but to actually listen to what other people are saying. That is rather more fruitful in my experience, anyway. But fundamentally, that really is just about individual views and opinions; informed by and based on all sorts of objective facts and agreed-upon norms no doubt, but at bottom for the most part still just that: opinions. I’ve already lost my last dregs of hope for humanity so I can’t forsee a discussion thread between dozens of anonymous people going very well. You’re welcome to try, though. Good luck and godspeed, my dude.

You said game is boring ****, I said you're wrong. You gotta back it up with some facts, you can't just pretend that your belief is true because it's "yours". Otherwise what's the point of what you wrote, what value it holds, and why should we care for you not having time to study the game a bit before making an opinion on it, cause your social life sucks or not? Well IWD2 had skeletal D&D3. I don't remember stuff like burning hands being useless or sword&shield being that bad. But I said that I don’t like the game because I think it is tedious among other things. I said that my opinion is my own and I understand if people like the game(Which is why I’m not attacking people who say they like it) YOU said my opinion is my own earlier as well. What have I done wrong? I never claimed my opinion was stronger than anyone elses. I just don’t want you to think of any opinion as true or false because it changes on an individual basis. I can’t make it any clearer than that, friend. Why must I have to convince you that I don’t like the game like I’m in denial of how I feel about the game? I just do not like it.

Yes to u. Everything you say about yourself is applied to you, not to anyone else. And if you're wrong, it is still you. It's ok to say if game is too difficult. But saying PoE is less tedious is simply untrue. You make no sense. BG2 didn't have casting in wild shape and sword&shield was perfectly viable. You didn't have to pick a manual to learn the game. There were even no builds to speak of. You played fighter you took most str/dex/con and that was the build for a fighter. The encounters in IE simply often are quicker. Hardest difficulty doesn't do anything to enemy hp. There are no vampires with 700 hp like in PoE2. It's just a fact that's how it works. IE is less complex than PoE when it comes to character development, and the combat plays quicker. Once again I find it hilarious how many people turn to bitching on D&D. It's like a popular thing to kick some old thing. Thing which did lots of things right and led to great games. Same with IE games though, these forums seem to be choke full of people who hate games which PoE is based on and are eager to mix them with dirt cause they're old or difficult or lol aerie romance. It's just outstanding. Maybe Sawyer's existence emits some sort of waves that brainwash people? I can't but wonder. Once again, how tedious something is to me is my opinion. Like some people find biochemistry tedious, but others find it fun. I even said, and I quote, “...but TO ME [PoE2] is much less tedious to get through...”. Denouncing my opinion on how tedious BG2 is to me as “simply untrue” is nonsense, my guy. I believe it is a slog, and you don’t, and that’s just fine.

I think it’s only a problem when people stop viewing opinions as opinions, but as undeniable truths that can’t be disagreed with lest you’re an affront to their way of life.

Yes it does. Any action while reloading will reset it. I’ve been putting wands and rods on my casters with the occasional bow or melee backup weapon so that they can get more auto attacks off

Although the post makes a good point, this should probably be moved to another section that isn’t spoiler free.

I think this is an astonishing comment. I always keep the party AI off, so nobody ever auto-attacks or auto-does anything in my party. And frankly, I find it kind of strange that someone would use the party AI and allow their characters to auto-attack. I mean, sure, it's a way to play the game, but I can't see why you'd want to do that. Why not watch a movie instead? By auto-attacking, I’m sure he means only smacking an enemy with your weapon and using few skills. Nothing to do with the AI in this context.

I hope you don't mean that horrible remake of BGII with playing recently- I played the enhanced edition on GOG. If that was the wrong one, that’s a shame, but the metaphorical cherry that is my first impression has already been popped, I’m afraid.

I’m also not trying to personally offend you by liking something you don’t and not liking something that you love. I have opinions and I like to share them.

Load of bull****. PoE just because of it's system that has more granularity in it is the definition of tedious. It's all about tedious gameplay and repeatedly using abilities you use every combat on every character. Unless you play it on story mode or smh. If you master BG2 you can go through it very quickly. PoE if you don't exploit, is same repetition every combat. "having job and family made me terrible at games" lololo dude. Why say game is pile of crap? Just say it honestly, that it's too difficult for you because you are bad and don't want to improve or spend any effort on the game. I said the game was bad TO ME (I’m sure I stated that explicitly), because I do not like what it does. I’m not claiming that the game is so flawed on a fundamental level that nobody can enjoy it. If you like it more, then more power to you. The second quote was about the Mickey Mouse Racing game if that wasn’t clear enough from the context clues around it. That said, I shouldn’t have to “master” every game to have fun with it. Time is limited and I try to make life worth living at least a little bit. I am also a filthy casual who likes to have fun with his games and tries not to burn himself out on them. I am bad at games if that’s what you wanted to hear.

I tried playing BG2 recently and I honestly thought it was a steaming load of crap, but I have no doubt that if I played it as a kid I would have had a whale of a time. When you’re young a cliche may not be a cliche to you, as you may not have seen it yet in your life. when you’re young every tedious quest that BG2 makes you have to slog through may not be that way because you have all the time in the world to figure out how to stop a gimmicky boss from one-shotting your team. I can’t stand it. I have school and a job and a dying social life that I have to desparately keep track of before I collapse and die. I agree that PoE 2 isn’t perfect, but to me is so much less tedious to get through (for me because this is subjective) and the combat is satisfying enough. It’s fine to still like a game that you’ve played 20 years ago, but to outright deny that nostalgia has anything to do with it seems absolutely deluded to me. Just own up to it. I played Mickey Mouse Racing for the playstation when I was a child and the image I have in my head of it is absolutely marvelous. It will forever be my favorite racing game because of the good memories I have of it. I know that if I play it again, however, that I wouldn’t stand the constant bull**** that game throws at the player to cheat them of victories.

I just used a bunch of Foe only AoE spells and used Serafen and his cipher skills to drain armor and defenses from the golems. Still spent like 10 minutes doing 1 dmg a pop to the final iron construct. I do agree that the civilians not reacting is a bit silly, though.

Yea, that should be fine. Just be wary of getting charmed like I said as Barb/Rogues can dish out a lot of damage pretty quickly

Even early game, the access to accuracy buffs and quick health restoration is pretty good imo. It’s saved me from a lot of early game trouble

Correction: All your AoE skills hit allies too. This includes skills you may get from unique weapons or armor. This can really suck if your barb is multiclassed with a strong aoe class like a spellcaster/cipher because you will basically blow up your own team and are more susceptible to getting charmed (from the -5 int)

Agree completely, OP. Although I’m newer to isometric rpgs, this game and games like DOS: 2 show how gorgeous worlds can be

Damn, sorry then, friend. This must be a bug, because the weapon worked fine for me

You can not empower normal attacks, only skills. I used blightheart in my playthrough of the game and you just have to kill with an empowered skill. A good way to do this is wait till an enemy (or enemies if the skill is aoe) is low and then just make everybody stop attacking and use the empowered skill to finish them off. Since you are usinng a chanter, you need to use an offensive invocation (like the lightning one or the one with the exploding corpses. That’s what worked for me with my fighter/chanter though I had more options since I multiclassed)