Ymarsakar

I used IE Mod to make auto save every 5-15 minutes instead of every load screen. Whenever it auto saves, not only are you Loading stuff from various containers, but you are then creating another copy using the same hard disc. It probably doubles the screen time, if not more depending on save size. They probably focused so much on the load time, they de prioritized the time it saves, since nobody was complaining about how long it takes to save, but if you add it to every screen change, it adds up. The reason is probably the 2d maps are derived from 3d assets, so the amount of data the game has to load per tile is pretty chunky. I heard they had to spend nearly half a day compiling the map data per area. Combined with all the little container files in unity, the hard disc is spinning all over the place to find them all, on top of saving/loading the file. Because PoE was supposed to run under 32 bit OS, they started "optimizing" the ram, but Unity was supposed to be run with 4-8 gigabyte ram and 64 bit OS optimally. So when they continually optimized the ram usage, they probably started dropping non essential things. Games that use ram limits of 4 gigabytes, do tend to load much faster than expected.

If they are going for a Consortium or Masquerade style immersion, it should be pretty powerful in potential. If it was just Obsidian, they probably would have used the Pillars engine. Since Paradox is paying, they must have wanted a flashier engine.

I suspect they have Sawyer working on Skyforge, his superior mechanical systems design for combat would benefit mmo types. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyforge Other than Paradox world of darkness rpg, and armored warfare, not sure what is left. The inquisition thing seems like Chris Avellone reflecting on Dragon Age 2 and DA Inquisition. Or maybe it was the other way around or a parallel thought process. Darkish fantasy has been on the horizon for some time now, since the demographics for fantasy has grown older.

Savage defiance can be pretty good for a quick heal on the bar, with the new healing multipliers. The aoe terrify has been rather useful so far. And it also tends to draw aggro due to being a debuff, if it sticks.

Their problem is that the writers are used to writing for D and D, and dungeon mastering for such games. So the combat system wasn't polished in the backer beta, so the writing used archetypes that the writers were familiar with as the writing began way before the backer beta. Josh wasn't responsible for the writing and creative narrative. In the context of the historical lore Josh Sawyer created for Pillars, the stats make sense. I remember they specifically did D and D games when writing for Pillars, as a way to prototype some ideas.

I saw how they were designing stats in the backer beta forums, sort of a project in motion view.

To Crucis: People may not care about what anyone else means on these forums, but if you want their diplomatic support, you won't get any as a result of ignoring other people's point of view. Which means, Obsidian will pay even less attention, if any, to isolated voices that even minor communities shun as a result of their emotional outbursts. Of course, the rpg codex seems to be known for its emotional outbursts, even by foreigners that don't use ENglish as number 1 language, such as the Divine Divinity folks. (Unless they do, and I'm wrong there) But for the codex Obsidian and other developers still read and pay attention to them, that's because they provide content, which is traded for diplomatic and leverage influence.

Early game, money is needed for certain items and what not, so I normally wouldn't upgrade the stronghold except maybe to get the garden, brighthollow to rest, and the warden's lodge for bounty quests. After every 2 primary quest or big dungeon crawl, you should probably have enough to fund a building unless you need to save up for one of Winfred's goodies. Revenue from taxes, you shouldn't worry about that too much. It's not nearly enough to cover hirelings or compare against what you can get by selling random loot from dungeon crawls. The random attacks, which happen as you rest (not as quests proceed), can also provide a nifty source of income, since some of the enemies drop loot. So after a few months, you'll get random attacks popping up (unless you use console to pre trigger it). I think most people fully upgrade the stronghold, because they have too much copper at near end game. These days, the more you upgrade your prestige, the more likely you are to get an artifact due to getting a micro adventure on Turn (quests advance turn, which is the only thing that does).

Trash mobs are to me, a fantasy mmo term, to relate to in raids where enemies are designed to delay your progress between bosses. Or in this case, quest battles and named npc fights. For people who over level and replay the game constantly, reducing them around certain areas in the base game provided more "equal" content, similar to dynamic level adjustment, and it saves time on several replays. It does reduce the difficulty of POTD, since it reduces the spawn tables for certain beginning levels. Which allows a more even progression between certain quests from Defiance. This "even ness" is also similar to their rationality for reducing Durance and GM's lines, to fit the other companions' percentage of lines that had VO. It makes POTD easier, and it reduces the number of rests required to clear wilderness areas. At the beginning of Act 3 I think it was, when moving to second big city, the wilderness spirits were like an army. It was difficult to aggro one and run into a good position without aggroing another group at the same time. When they added immunities, perhaps they wanted to tone those encounters down, but they didn't remove like 50% of them, it's more like they had 10 enemies reduced to 2 +1 for hard +1 for potd. Although I'll have to play all of it before deciding just what they did to all these regions.

Sword/shield and single weapon wielded, two different things. So the shield user won't get the 12 accuracy bonus. The talents stack, except for special circumstances like this and weapon focus.

Thanks. There's usually someone here on this sub forum that has played through all versions, almost. Might need to use the forced stronghold attack console, for testing purposes. Need a bit more challenge than these random non threatening life forms on the wilderness trail to see what this current party setup is capable of.

Yea, the stuff on youtube are just snippets. The whole vid is 84 mins long. Anyway, it was just a general idea that it would be nice if I could share it - sure he could come over and just watch it, but it doesn't always make sense - and in this case, he doesn't even live in the same city... Unfortunately I do not have the GOG version, just the Steam one... I suppose this is a case in point in making the embedded vimeo on Obsidian's website share-able, as why would it be downloadable/sharable via one platform but not the other... meh.. It's too bad, it's a great vid.. In the age of smartphones, physically going to watch a video doesn't seem to make much sense, even if you refuse/cannot download full one from your account access. Torch doesn't work for vimeo? Sking, I was surprised at how much emotional evocation was in that documentary. It's a skill Obsidian should think about transfering to their games.

Even the 10% speed boost would be worth it if it had nothing else. It would be imbalanced if the bonuses began stacking.

For certain caves and wilderness areas, so far off the crit path, it seems the number of enemies has been dramatically reduced in POTD, although they still seem to have a some higher stats like defense or accuracy. For example, Dyrford wilderness on the east side, there's 2-3 wooden beetles north from the start plus 2 sporelings. South usually had 2 stone beetles, but no longer has even 1. The notable areas like around the secret places, still seem to have those stone beetles, although the beetles seemed to have had their stats reduced. My question has to do with when they rebalanced or removed the creature spawns for POTD, as White March 1 or perhaps pre White March, the density were a lot higher.

They should have put all the backer NPCs in the Stronghold and gave them actual roles and content. Would have resolved a lot of complaints about empty stronghold. As for testing... use the console and activate with this line. StrongholdForceAttack index - a number ranging from 0 to I don't know