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jww

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Posts posted by jww

  1. Dual-wield inquisitor with soulblade as the sub-class, alternating FoD and Soul Annihilation, can be fun. By mid-levels, a single FoD (with decent weapons) will usually push your focus up over 100, and then you spend that on SA. FoD is a full attack and SA isn't, but with 100 focus, SA actually does more damage, so it's kind of like having 24 full attacks in a row (12 zeal, using devil of caroc breastplate and the paladin passive for an extra point of zeal). And the passive for a 25% chance to get an extra point of zeal for each kill helps, too. The only other active cipher ability I use frequently is Borrowed Instinct, though I take a lot of the passives.

     

    I went Kind Wayfarer, so between FoD healing and the healing aura, my PC did the bulk of the healing in the party as well as the bulk of the damage.

  2. The current state of the game?

    The majority of people over at other forums seem to agree with this, a post, courtesy of PowerSworder:

    "I love making new characters and min/maxing with the ruleset, but having to plod through that tutorial is a chore. 

     

    I really enjoyed the combat... but some of the bugs have been very annoying, like finesse training stopping working for dual-wield.

     

    But by far the most aggravating thing about the game is the kingdom management. Being forced to waste 2 weeks with your main character every time you want to level up an advisor is probably my biggest gripe. If they ditched that mechanic alone, most of my problems with the kingdom management would disappear.

     

    1) Too strict time limits on... everything.

    2) Being unable to deal with opportunities and problems because you're "trapped" training an advisor.

    3) Not having enough time to train up all your advisors to the correct levels, which means the increasingly harder DC checks become impossible to meet.

     

    I've NEVER savescummed a game as much as I have this one, just trying to deal with all the crap that gets thrown at you in kingdom management. It absolutely sucks all fun out of that part of the game.

     

    As I progressed through the acts, it was quite clear how many gamebreaking bugs had slipped through. I don't necessarily blame the QA team for that, they probably reported all the bugs they encountered... "

    I've mostly played other games after two restarts of this game, which I really love, Act 1, at least, but I'm literally scared of my taking on the rest, Act 2 and Kingdom management, will just slowly frustrate me and wring all the fun out of the game. Those nasty lime limits, and weeks spent on boring kingdom stuff, which in itself seems to be an RNG fiesta . I'd preferred a more lighthearted kingdom managing, and in the shape of something that  never interferes with my party's urge to adventure.

     

    This is unfortunate. I haven't gotten to this point in the game due to other issues, but half the appeal of a new RPG is to take your time and explore everything. If a good chunk of the game is locked behind time limits and red tape...    Do the automatic kingdom management options eliminate these issues?

    • Like 1
  3. The walking speed is the same as in every classic game of this kind. There was no "fast mode" before Pillars. Don't be spoiled.

     

    I just tested it against BG and NWN, both of which are games that I've played far more than Pillars. Kingmaker was noticeably slower, when viewed at similar scale. Obviously if you zoom way out on BGEE so that it's showing 4 times the amount of area that Kingmaker can show, then it'll seem like you're walking slower, but it's just because you're walking a farther distance.

     

    Part of the problem might be that Kingmaker makes your character slow way down whenever you start moving or change directions. Without that, it might be bearable.

  4.  

    Patch 1.10:

     

    ... Patch 1.10 and *still* no indication of when they'll fix walking speed or UI performance?

     

    To be honest, I don't know how you guys are playing the game. I imagine the UI issues may not affect everyone, but I'm pretty sure the walking speed does, and I can only manage about 5 minutes at a stretch before the walking speed annoys me so much that I quit playing.

     

    I kind of wish somebody took the NWN2 engine, fixed the camera and all the bugs that are still left in it, and replaced the 3.5 ruleset with Pathfinder.

  5. I occasionally see an odd AI bug. I haven't figured out how to replicate it reliably, so I don't have a save file handy, but here's how it works:

     

    If I set a custom AI where the final item on the list is "Always True" but has a timer, the game will occasionally ignore the timer and simply repeat that action until the character runs out of the resources to perform it. I can work around it by adding an Always True auto-attack to the end of the list, but if someone doesn't notice that it's happening, it could hamstring their character without them realizing why.

     

    The scripts where I've specifically noticed it being a problem are specifically scripts that are buffing only. It's not as much of a problem if a character uses the same attack multiple times in a row, but if they spend all their resources casting the same buff six times in a row while it's still active, it becomes an issue. (I believe it's only buffs that require a timer in the AI trigger, but I haven't checked recently whether buffs that can use an inspiration trigger do the same thing.)

     

    I just now encountered it in 3.0.1, but I've seen it in earlier versions of the game as well.

     

    For the playthrough where I just encountered it, I tried creating a save file, but then I loaded that save four more times and it didn't trigger again.

    • Like 1
  6. Since you can't swap out spells, taking stuff at 1st level that ends up not being useful at later levels seems a poor choice.

     

    It's unfortunate you can't swap spells, but I'd still take something other than Magic Missile at level 1. You can cast your cantrips as frequently as you want (as far as I could tell), and they are almost as good as a level 1 Magic Missile. In other games, I usually pick it up the next time I get a first-level spell pick (two missiles is fine).

  7. A few responses to some previous posts...

     

    Magic Missile is good as one of a sorcerer's first-level spells, but I don't recommend it as one of your first picks -- it just doesn't do much when your character is level 1. Something with crowd control would be a better option to start with (I haven't gotten far enough in the game to say what would be best).

     

    For those considering Eldritch Knight builds, note that the game doesn't include the Still Spell feat, so there's no reliable casting while wearing armor for spells that have somatic components.

    • Like 1
  8.  

     

    Man, must be pretty awkward when a noobie Russian studio can make a better CRPG on their first try than Obsidian after god knows how many years now.

     

    Maybe they can license the engine?

     

    Is that a joke? Pathfinder: Kingmaker has a good rule set, which did not come from the studio. It came from decades of development over the life of D&D, leading to d20, 3.5, and then Pathfinder.

     

    Is there anything else good about it? Certainly not the engine. Maybe the game gets better -- I can't tell, because it's unplayable now.

     

    Nothing has stopped Obsidian from using Pathfinder, it's been out for a while now. While there's still bugs, Owlcat has pretty much figured out RTwP gameplay things that Obsidian never could, stuff like AI (especially companion AI), the overmap, resting, inventory management, an intuitive UI. You know stuff that actually makes people want to play the game.

     

     

    How do I customize the Kingmaker companion AIs? Right now, they just do whatever they want, and I haven't found the location in the UI so that I can set them up how I want.

     

    As for the UI, it's hard to judge whether something is intuitive when it's running about 5 seconds behind my mouse.

  9. Man, must be pretty awkward when a noobie Russian studio can make a better CRPG on their first try than Obsidian after god knows how many years now.

     

    Maybe they can license the engine?

     

    Is that a joke? Pathfinder: Kingmaker has a good rule set, which did not come from the studio. It came from decades of development over the life of D&D, leading to d20, 3.5, and then Pathfinder.

     

    Is there anything else good about it? Certainly not the engine. Maybe the game gets better -- I can't tell, because it's unplayable now.

    • Like 3
  10. I see they delayed the big patch. 1.06 still has the problems that are making it impossible for me to play. Have they said *anything* about fixing the UI performance or adding an option so that your characters aren't slogging through a pool of molasses? Or fixing the startup time? Adding a note saying the game will boot slowly the first time around is kind of pointless, when it boots slowly every single time. And why is their publicly released version of the game crashing every time I quit, with a message that I don't have developer debugging tools installed on my Mac?

     

    Still can't find any documentation on how the Magus feats function, so I switched to Cleric, but still stopped 10 minutes into the game because my party walks slower than an 80-year old with a walker.

     

    I really, really want to play a Pathfinder game, but they're going to need to make a lot of progress to convince me that this is it.

     

    P.S. Why implement Eldritch Knight but not implement Still Spell???

  11. Gladiator's Sword +5 deflection is constant as long as you are pairing it with a shield. It shows up on my character screen on all the time, and doesn't appear to be conditional. Gladiator's sword also adds +10% damage (when used with shield) and +1 PEN, so I think it's kind of underrated.

     

    There's also Outward Spikes on Tuitilo's Palm for an extra riposte-like attack, if you prefer a shield that gives you dual-wield speed and dual-wield full attacks. (I don't think Outward Spikes is a full attack, but regular Riposte is.) Tuitilo's Palm might not add quite as much deflection as some of the other options mentioned above, but may still be worth it if you want to do more than just riposting -- and it doesn't have the accuracy penalty that some of the other options have (plus, even if you aren't a monk, you can use Monastic Unarmed Training to scale its weapon stats).

     

    I've been playing with a Goldpact Paladin/Trickster with Gladiator's Sword and Tuitilo's Palm with high RES and PER (aiming for Champion's helm for a third riposte chance once I get that far). Still low levels (no Persistent Distraction yet), but it's been pretty effective, at least once I got Tuitilo's Palm. And it ripostes more often than I expected, though it depends on getting the enemies to attack me. I had to change my other tank's AI to slow it down so I could get the enemies to go aggro on me first. I have to run into battle first to draw aggo, so I have to wait to cast Mirrored Image and Sworn Enemy. If I cast those before drawing aggro, then too many enemies swarm my other characters, lowering the number of ripostes I get.

    • Like 2
  12.  

    Yes but remember the character generator for DA was much more advanced. Everyone would look almost identical on this.

     

    Yes, DA had a more advanced character generator ... but I'm just using their "head shot" part as an example of what could replace the portraits.

     

    And a "head shot" system would give more looks than the current portrait system.  Especially for the races I mentioned.

    I mean, the "Male, Island, Amaua" (brown skin) has only one portrait option.

     

     

    I've been doing this for characters where I don't have a custom portrait I want to use (I'm not really a big fan of the existing portraits, so I rarely use those). During the level-up screen, it shows your character on the right side of the screen, and there's a button to zoom in. I take a screenshot of the head (after zooming in), and run it through the PoE1 option in the Baldur's Gate portrait generator (http://www.notra.fr/portrait), which gives you two of the sizes you need. Then I resize that image and crop it to get the other two sizes I need (I don't know how to do the one that looks like it's drawn on parchment, but it doesn't bother me to just use a regular image in its place).

     

    It's not great, since the head still comes out a bit small and fuzzy, but it's better than using a picture that looks nothing like my character.

  13. First of all tweak the numbers!

     

    -75% with double inversion is actually -300% as long as the attacker has dmg bonuses. Thats WAY too high.

     

     

    Could you explain what -300% damage means in this context? The traditional CRPG definition would be that it does no damage at all, plus it heals you for twice as much damage as it would have caused. That's obviously not happening here. Is there a complete (and accurate) damage calculation formula available? (The last one I saw posted on the forum didn't actually work mathematically.) Thanks!

  14. Does anyone have some tips on Magus, or a site where this information has been provided? Specifically:

     

    1. How do you turn Spell Combat on and off, or tell if it's on or off (weapon and spell firing in the same round), if you want to avoid the attack roll penalty sometimes?

     

    2. I haven't reached level 2 yet, but how do you turn Spellstrike on or off (say, if you want a melee touch attack rather than a melee weapon attack)?

     

    3. How do you use Spell Combat and Spellstrike at the same time (or choose between them), and make sure the spells get applied to the appropriate one?

     

    4. How does "automatic mode" work for all classes, and how does it specifically interact with the Magus's Spell Combat and Spellstrike abilities?

     

    5. I found a button to turn AI on and off, but I can't find any spot to customize the AI settings. Is there one?

  15. It's possible that some equipment abilities check damage type in addition to the keyword. So the keyword may still be missing but certain things still trigger because the damage type matches.

     

    If that's the case, the keyword should still be added, to be certain that everything affects it that should affect it and not just some things.

    • Like 1
  16.  

     

     

    I haven't tried Oathbreaker's End, but I love Lord Darryn's Voulge on my Devoted/Berserker (bound to the barbarian side). Just for clarity, note that you mentioned "battleaxe" and LDV is a poleaxe.

     

    Edit: And you can get it very early. Just raise the rank of your sailors a bit, save the game right before heading into the storm, and read the current status of the storm and the tooltips for the actions you can take, to match the actions to the current status. You should be able to make it through without losing any sailors, though you may need to re-load and try again.

     

    Yeah, I will choose poleaxe or battleaxe for Gimli as Devoted/Barbarian. How does the damage compare to 2H - and did you play on PotD? I am a bit nervous about the high penetration requirement of PotD, because Darryn's top out at Superb, not Legendary.

     

     

    I'm playing PotD, and I haven't run into any problems so far.

     

    I'm at work, so I can't remember exactly, but I think fully upgraded, LDV for a Devoted is base 14 PEN, not counting food or active abilities? But that's dual slash/shock. Usually when enemies have ludicrously high armor values, it'll be for one or two damage types, often slash/pierce. Berserker gets +2 PEN with Frenzy, so I'm at 16 during tough fights, and I can't think of many (any?) enemies who would have more than 16 armor on both slash and shock. And if you use the food that raises you another two points...

     

    Plus, standard poleaxe is slash/crush, so I keep a second poleaxe in my other weapon slot, giving me three different damage types while still maintaining Devoted bonuses. Generally if an enemy has high slash and/or pierce armor, their crush armor will be lower.

     

     

    Hmm, I thought Darryn's is actually slash/crush/lightning. Now I am having second thoughts, especially because the only other poleaxe is Wahai Poraga, and that looks pretty bad for single target DPS.

     

     

    You would so rarely need to use a backup weapon, I wouldn't worry about it. I've just got a regular 'Fine' poleaxe in my second slot, and so far I've never bothered using it.

  17.  

    I haven't tried Oathbreaker's End, but I love Lord Darryn's Voulge on my Devoted/Berserker (bound to the barbarian side). Just for clarity, note that you mentioned "battleaxe" and LDV is a poleaxe.

     

    Edit: And you can get it very early. Just raise the rank of your sailors a bit, save the game right before heading into the storm, and read the current status of the storm and the tooltips for the actions you can take, to match the actions to the current status. You should be able to make it through without losing any sailors, though you may need to re-load and try again.

     

    Yeah, I will choose poleaxe or battleaxe for Gimli as Devoted/Barbarian. How does the damage compare to 2H - and did you play on PotD? I am a bit nervous about the high penetration requirement of PotD, because Darryn's top out at Superb, not Legendary.

     

     

    I'm playing PotD, and I haven't run into any problems so far.

     

    I'm at work, so I can't remember exactly, but I think fully upgraded, LDV for a Devoted is base 14 PEN, not counting food or active abilities? But that's dual slash/shock. Usually when enemies have ludicrously high armor values, it'll be for one or two damage types, often slash/pierce. Berserker gets +2 PEN with Frenzy, so I'm at 16 during tough fights, and I can't think of many (any?) enemies who would have more than 16 armor on both slash and shock. And if you use the food that raises you another two points...

     

    Plus, standard poleaxe is slash/crush, so I keep a second poleaxe in my other weapon slot, giving me three different damage types while still maintaining Devoted bonuses. Generally if an enemy has high slash and/or pierce armor, their crush armor will be lower.

     

    Edit: Regarding damage compared to dual-wield, I stopped worrying about that after the 2.1 nerfs to dual-wielding. In most martial builds, dual-wielding is probably still better, but to be honest, I've gotten kind of tired of dual-wielding. It's possible LDV + Carnage + Static Shock makes up for the difference, but I don't have any math to show one way or the other, and I'm not really concerned about it.

    • Like 1
  18. I haven't tried Oathbreaker's End, but I love Lord Darryn's Voulge on my Devoted/Berserker (bound to the barbarian side). Just for clarity, note that you mentioned "battleaxe" and LDV is a poleaxe.

     

    Edit: And you can get it very early. Just raise the rank of your sailors a bit, save the game right before heading into the storm, and read the current status of the storm and the tooltips for the actions you can take, to match the actions to the current status. You should be able to make it through without losing any sailors, though you may need to re-load and try again.

    • Like 1
  19. I haven't read through this whole thread to see if others are having problems, but so far Kingmaker is unplayable for me.

     

    I really, really want a game using Pathfinder (or 3.5) rules, especially now that I can't find a mod to make the NWN2 interface usable on a 4k/5k screen. And I can only play Deadfire and the BG enhanced editions so many times.

     

    But so far, Kingmaker freezes on start-up about two-thirds of the time. The rest of the time, after about 3 minutes, it will finally reach the start menu, and its incredibly slow user interface.

     

    Character creation is usable, but slow (and randomly unresponsive). Even as early as character creation, I was encountering blocks of text (e.g., tooltips) that were linked to the wrong UI element.

     

    The English-language editing is not good. There are a number of inappropriate commas inserted that need to be removed (poor grammar in a professional-grade product is a pet peeve of mine).

     

    I made it into the first room so far, and I think the game's performance is better than the UI's performance (so my video card probably isn't the problem), but my character was walking so slowly, I just saved the game and turned it off. I need to search around and see if there's a way to walk faster.

     

    In my whole two minutes of experience with the companions (or at least I assume they will become companions), they are written as if they are cartoon characters as opposed to Deadfire's companions that talk more like a real person would talk. I don't actually mind that, since I tend to fast-forward through companion conversations if I don't like them, but they speak more like Minsc or Jan than like Cassandra or Leiliana, and in 2018, the expectations might be higher than that. (Sure, Minsc is fun, but he's a caricature.)

     

    Anyway, I'm still very much looking forward to a game with the Pathfinder ruleset, but I may need to wait for a few more patches.

    • Like 1
  20. So if a drake has base damage of 100, and +100% damage bonus, it will hit u 200 damage. If your AR is 3 point higher than drake’s pen, then the damage is not simply 200 * 0.25 = 50, but 100 / (1 - 100% + 300%) = 33, it is much lower as u can see, +100% damage bonus only gives the drake a damage boost from 25 -> 33.

     

    And from 200 to 33 is a huge reduction, much more than -75% shown in tooltip.

     

    Are you sure that formula is correct? I can't quite figure out how to get 200 damage out of that, assuming no under-pen.

  21. - Two things; first your sorcerer and mine don't seem to have the same starting point; I want a druid with more, you seem to have got an evoker nuker with druid spells. Both cool, but different (I also seem to focus more on CC than you are? Just an impression). Second, we don't use the same spells, I don't favor DAoM because I'm already squishy and I feel fast enough from the DEX (I do inted to pick some items, probably similar ones).

     

    Additionnaly, I just don't trust the party AI with AOE spells that are not FOE only. A badly placed Chill Fog (looking at you Aloth è_é) can really wreck the party, so I'll have more hands down control on that guy.

     

    Right, they are different builds, but they are both sorcerers and likely to encounter many of the same issues, so I just thought I'd let you know what I've encountered so far. Even with a different spell selection, if you are playing PotD, you may run into the same issue I did where things felt a bit slow during the mid levels before they started improving again. If you're not playing PotD, you probably won't have that problem.

     

    The AI I was referring to is only for casting buffs, not for targeting spells. I have four buffs that cast at the beginning of every fight (Infuse with Vital Essence, DAoM, Spirit Shield, and Eldritch Aim), so I've automated that step. I manually control the character for everything else - I agree that it's much better to target AoE spells myself, whether they are foe-only or not.

  22. Did you try switching AI from Aggressive to Defensive/Passive Behaviour?

     

    Yes. The behavior that's labeled as "Auto-Attack" is actually determining whether the AI script as a whole triggers. So if it's set to Passive, my AI (buffs only) doesn't trigger at all. If it's set to Defensive, it'll only trigger if I run up to the enemies (or, I guess, if they run up to me). I posted on the tech support forum but there hasn't been a resolution yet, and I don't know if anybody else is encountering the same issue.

  23. I'm working on a sorcerer build based on the things people typically say about sorcerer on this forum: Too many spells to cast during a fight, and not enough power behind those spells. I'm sure that second part is probably correct when compared to a single-class evoker, but I thought... maybe if I can toss out every single spell quickly during every single fight fight, it'll help make up for not having PL 8 and 9 spells. And if my equipment and abilities are focused on improving the spells that I do have, it also helps make up for not having the extra PL.

     

    So, I worked up the Speedy Sorcerer. I've had to stop playing the game for a while, so I'm only at level 14, but I can tell you what I've found so far. I can't tell you how it compares to a single-class wizard, because I've never played a high-level single-class wizard. I'm pretty sure the wizard will significantly out-damage it in the end (and can use many of the same things I'm using to improve its spell-casting ability), but it's kind of fun tossing out a massive number of spells in every fight.

     

    Attributes, including Berath's Blessings and equipment:

    MIG 16

    CON 8

    DEX 25

    PER 20

    INT 20

    RES 7

     

    Race: Nature Godlike (+1 PL when using Infuse with Vital Essence or a Dex inspiration)

    Class: Fury (+1 PEN on Elemental spells), Evoker (+2 PL Evocation spells)

     

    Important Equipment:

    Miscreant's Leathers + Abraham (reduce recovery time as much as possible)

    Ring of Focused Flame (+10 Accuracy with Fire attacks)

    Ninagauth's Teachings (I like Ninaguath's Shadowflame, and was expecting a better bonus to it from Watershaper's Focus, but see below)

    Firethrower's Gloves (+1 PL Evocation spells)

     

    Weapons (can only use one at a time, so have to switch between them, so I'm working on figuring out how to batch spells together based on what bonuses they need):

    Lord Darryn's Voulge: +3 Storm PL

     

    Watershaper's Focus: +1 Water/Frost PL. I thought this was +2 when I started this build, and expected to get a lot more use out of it, but honestly right now I don't usually bother switching to it unless I want to auto-attack from a distance.

     

    Spine of Thicket Green: +3 Beast/Plant PL. I haven't really used this yet, and might get rid of it, to make room for:

     

    Magran's Favor: I don't have this yet, but I understand it adds Fire PL.

     

    ---

     

    My AI script casts Infuse with Vital Essence and Deleterious Alacrity of Motion when they are not active, which gives 25 INT for larger area-of-effect and 30 DEX (plus 15% action speed), which, when combined with Miscreant's Leathers and Abraham, allows very fast casting of spells. I also auto-cast Eldritch Aim, which combined with 20 PER helps hit things. Eldritch Aim doesn't have a long duration even with 25 INT, but I use the Inn bonus that gives me an extra 1st level spell, so I can get 1 Spirit Shield and 2 Eldritch Aims per fight, and I cast my heavy hitters early in the fight to take advantage of it.

     

    Passives focus on things that enhance spell-casting, in particular Rapid Casting and all of the +PEN abilities (I don't have them all yet, but working on it).

     

    For spells, I mostly focus on spells that are enhanced by my abilities and equipment, e.g., druid storm elemental spells (a total of +4 PL and +2 PEN) and wizard evocation spells (a total of +4 PL and +1 PEN), plus a few others, like Touch of Rot, which was great at low levels but has too low of PEN during mid-levels on PotD (but I'm hoping it picks up at higher levels). Spells are spread a cross a wide variety of damage types and areas of effect, to respond to different scenarios. And Hail Storm's area-of-effect is absolutely massive.

     

    It's possible that there are more effective DoT spells that the evoker misses out on, but I was focused on spells I could enhance with abilities and equipment.

     

    --

     

    As for effectiveness, levels 1 to 5 were pretty awesome (mostly from Touch of Rot). From about levels 6 to 12, I felt like I was losing ground -- enemies had too much armor on PotD. But as of level 13, I've felt like that's started turning around. With Relentless Storm, and two casts each of Hail Storm and Ninagauth's Shadowflame, I've started making some real progress...as long as my tanks can hold the enemies to a spot where I can hit a bunch of them at once. I don't know how well it will play at high levels.

     

    --

     

    Gameplay: Very fast. You probably don't want to play the challenge that doesn't let you pause the game. Very, very squishy, especially with DAoM. If I didn't have three different regen auras from my tanks, I'd switch from DAoM to Fleet Feet. Also, I'm having a problem with my buff-only AI, where if it's active, then it makes me run (very fast) to auto-attack the enemies every time I'm finished casting a spell. Reported it as a bug, but that's one of the reasons why this character is on hold. Definitely not designed for solo play. Probably the best part of the gameplay is that it's the most active I've been with a character -- constantly switching between spells based on environment, enemies, and formations. Very different than a lot of the melee builds I've made that focused on one or two abilities over and over again.

     

    If I ever finish the game with this build, and it turns out to be effective at high levels, I'll probably write up a build post, but I didn't want to write up the build until I was sure it was effective.

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