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

http://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity/mods/1 A way to make it work with 3.0-3.01 has been updated, but some crashes due to combat with certain enemies/animation/powers used. The console still works from save/reload. I use the blue circle for neutral, only one tooltip on at a time for tab mode, and fast sneak for individual line of sight. Also custom UI looks more subdued. What I really need is to move where the big PAUSE text is, to make the combat log reach that part. Trying to read the combat log with the big Pause on top of it, is horribad. So even though the middle can be removed, it doesn't improve the range of movement for the combat log window's resize. Except up.

"In the end, I feel that the desire for shorter games in the guise of "quality over quantity" is just a ruse to hide the fact that the new age of "mobile apps" has created a breed of gamers with very short attention spans: instant gratification vs worthwhile investment. I remember a time when the "instant gratification" debates took place between FPS gamers vs RPG gamers. But now the debate takes place between RPG gamers. I blame the mobile app industry for this shift." I've seen some of this conflict and dichotomy at work, of course. I think it does exist, but isn't behind some of the feedback concerning Fenster's issues with Pillars' crit path. Part of the reason, I surmise, people had a hard time finishing Act 2 was that when they would take a break, of say 2-6 months due to real life or waiting for better patch fixing bugs, they would come back to their old save and it would be hard getting back into the game. Because Pillars is punishing on people who "forget" the mechanics. It has deep, not shallow, mechanics. Which is to say, complicated, people get more the more they put in. But if they come back after a few months, it's like summer vacation for students. They forget stuff, and then they feel lost when they try to get back the fun in their game save, then they lose interest because the game is in the middle and doesn't prod them as much. Of course other people may react differently. Games like CK2 (Crusader Kings 2) are even deeper, similar to war games, but the player can set short term goals for themselves and isn't reliant on a quest or narrative arc to give them satisfaction. The problem with long term games in the US/West is one of emotional payout. In Japanese visual novels, I regularly spend tens of hours, and in the rpg VNs it nears the 3 digits number if not over, for content consumed. But that content would seem utterly boring to people, Clannad might be an example although it has pretty good humour. But I go through it because there are several emotional and payback highlights during the game, and not at the "end of the game" either. If Clannad has a 90/100 in emotional payback at 20% of game completed, Pillars is reliant more on its combat and item/companion system, with the narrative ending being rather cold, less than 50/100 I would say. The companions and combat would be closer to 80/100 throughout the game, but the climatic ending wasn't really as climatic, except in the combat sense. And if that is all it has going for it, might be a problem. The Witcher 1, felt very different as a result, because it wasn't from the Western culture. It was Eastern European in culture. Close, but different enough that the high points felt different. Pillars is an old school game in more than one meaning, in that the content and gameplay is the highlight and the narrative arc isn't necessarily designed to stand on its own. Except it does stand on its own, being divorced more from gameplay mechanics. Mask of the Betrayer wasn't like that, and I liked the spirit eater mechanic because it was more geared to the narrative, role playing, and plot. Others hated it, of course, but what I really hated was the 3d camera and all the other micro involved that had nothing to do with the stuff I wanted to consume. The game engine was a mechanical layer I was fighting, including all those hundreds of crafting ingredients. Another issue with these types of demographics is that we aren't part of all of one demographic. Our tastes and subjective views of quality diverge due to generational and sub culture issues. We're all lumped into the "old school rpg" scene because of neglect from corporate sponsors or mainstream unification. What divides Obsidian's customers are humongous, however, but because there's no "genre" to classify us in various sub genres, they have to dig around blind for feedback and how to make use of it. People didn't like the spirit eater mechanic in Mask of the Betrayer, so when Eric Fenster wanted to make the Watcher insanity more real and demanding on the player, that was axed off probably for that reason. Then people would later complain that the narration has no solid component and the player is often lost. And if you change that, then people would say that you can't explore the world without a quest timer. And then people would complain about Fallout's quest timer. The point is not that this is special to gamers for old school rpgs. The point is that this is evidence of several dozens of sub cultures all trying to fit into one game genre, old school rpgs. And they don't, they can't. So Kickstarter with Torment : Tides, Wasteland 2, Pillars, Divine Divinity, Shadowrun and so forth is ensuring that people recognize that fact. They aren't pulling from the same "money pool" even. It's more like 3-8 venn diagrams mixing together, and old school rpg is dab smack in the middle touching everything. For most people, when they play a game like an AAA title or smaller independent title, they know whether they like it or not. But they cannot in any specific way explain why they don't like it or what they would like to see. That's the job of developers, for the most part to envision, predict, and iterate on. "And my point is that gaming in itself is subpar/filler in the grand scheme of things (e.g., spending time with family, friends, work is much more productive than gaming if you're an adult)." And yet people go to Hollywood movies and play around with their smart phones all day long, even while talking to people. If gaming itself is subpar filler, then a majority of people's free time is subpar, unless they're slaving away to pay the bills for some corporate baron. What you're addressing has more to do with 1st world civilized culture vs barbarian tribal existence than with gaming. "The cut content for act 2's ending could have helped, if they didn't have to make 15 levels of CN maybe they wouldn't have had cut it. " If Fenster and Josh had placed a higher resource priority on finishing the crit path, they would have been able to re allocate resources early on in production. Making 15 levels is one thing. Allocating the resources they did, was the decision of the designers and producers. And when you're making the end, at the end, when resource time has run out, inevitably the lower priority stuff gets cut. In this case, that involved the crit path. The crit path didn't have critical priority, strangely enough. It had VO priority, hearing Thaos and it was well done VO. Narrative and content wise, there was something missing. Dyrford, even, felt more polished and more linked together.

That's like saying knockdown is insuitable because it doesn't last forever on a fighter.

I would go for dual sabres, given the normal element. The greatsword or estoc if you are dealing with particularly high DR enemies, perhaps, or those immune to slash. The issue is that when you take the 15% damage talent or the 20% dual weapon speed talent, you tend to start using the weapon you have a talent for, and that can lock you down in freedom. Early game, before level 5-6, I mostly use weapon/sshield combos and ranged weapons with high base damage. The ranged weapons act better to bypass dr than two handed weapons, and has the advantage of long range. The ones I have who use two handed weapons or dual weapons, tend to be specialized builds and classes. Such as barbarian pike. Or those like Kana with more than 2 weapon slots.

It's not due to the kickstarter stretch goals or the promises, but due to the way they designed their content in preproduction. T Elms was designed at the same time as Defiance Bay. As its twin, so to speak. Thus it feels the same way. The crit path was added later, with the content already preproduced and already in production probably. Without combining the two and getting player feedback, they didn't get the chance to iterate, based on the feedback. All the backer betas could test was dyrford. The crit path and the big cities, were not allowed to be BB tested. It was only internal testing. I liked Dyrford, it had a good sense to it and it attached itself to one of the primary plot arcs. In a sense, the preproduction for the world lore was already done. So it was easy for them to make a big city about Glanfathans. That's in the lore. But it was not necessarily something that made the crit path more emotionally deep or satisfying. There were creative ways around that, as I've described before. But those decisions have to at least be thought about and argued on during preproduction. Not having time to iterate is pretty tough. As you lack the time to improve upon the way the product is executed. Many tests in the BBs were to balance the combat system, so to speak. And that's why the combat system started out pretty good. Well, other than the fact that per gave deflection, the BBs didn't suggest that as the solution.

To go back to a previous topic Zenbane wrote about. Which was the topic of older games "wasting time" with games. I wouldn't classify it like that. What people are looking for is depth or entertainment. Or rather, depth to their entertainment. Most people's hobbies are not their jobs, meaning it drains money and time. So when they choose to spend their time, they want the max value for their time as is feasible. Because there are no bosses telling them how to have good fun. If there was, they wouldn't be doing what they want in their free time, it would be on somebody else's time, cause somebody else would have paid for it. This is why developers who work for publishers may produce conflicting products that the consumers want or don't want. It is also why Kickstarter changed some things, on a deep design level, not merely a funding level or type. If a developer said that they would just do whatever felt fun to them, and ignored UI and game feedback from their users, that would lead to something interesting. Sort of like SOTS2' UI, such as the mission system, the reverse of the SOTS1 UI even. It also tends to remind consumers of Mass Effect 3's ending and the way the developers/publishers used game journalists to attack the motivation and concerns of their own customers as being "entitled" to something they didn't earn or deserve. In reality, it is the consumers paying the bank accounts that sustain the publishers and devs. They did not pay to be fooled into believing in deceptive promises. And due to later internal leaks, it was discovered that Bioware didn't even follow their own internal writing process for the ending. They not only betrayed their initial promises, they betrayed their own co workers by not bringing them into the process as usual. None of that is supposed to be something concerning Obsidian's game. But the topic of games wasting player's time isn't something new by now. Reshaping the topic into players wasting their time by playing games, is talking about an entirely different theme. Whether a person is wasting their time with hobbies and entertainment is an entirely different cultural sub topic than the issue concerning game development quality.

I use a crossbow on my rogue and weapon/sshield. Very versatile. If your rogue keeps dying, start using escape and coordinated positioning. I can escape engagement and still do good sneak attack damage with the crossbow. Or run up to an enemy and do a backstab at 2m with the crossbow, which is better usually than the melee stuff. A wizard with essential phantom can also block the rogue from being flanked, by putting the phantom at the rogue's rear. The wizard's dimensional shift, can also combo with a rogue for when it needs to get out of dodge. The wizard then pops arcane or mirrored images, goes into shield mode, and does a cone attack or terrify aoe. Then dimensional shifts back out to the phantom when the durations and endurance runs out. Spot tank. This allows the rogue to regen endurance. The priest's withdraw is also good for saving a rogue, but at the expense of taking out the dps for x seconds. The fighter might need Take the hit at level 11 for a retrain, as it would prolong the rogue's exposure to damage by halfing it to the fighter as raw damage. But the distance is pretty short, I would rather rely on escape/shadow/coordinated.

Adjusting armor for encounters applies for the entire party, however. Higher DR armor is essential in the longer fights, but the people who use range weapons can usually go at max medium armor. -30 or -35. Generally for fights against less than 5-6 enemies, medium or light armor can be good. Fights against higher level enemies that are few but strong, bosses, or more than 6+ equivalent enemy formations, might take some time and thus higher DR helps. The higher dr is a force multiplier. The more endurance and heals you get, the more effective it is, especially when it can turn a 2 hit ko into a 3 hit ko or a 1 hit ko into a 2 hit ko. It allows time for recovery and reaction or a tactical change up.

The mourner gloves in my game drain -18 endurance and then gives 18 endurance back to the user. It's only in the on hit numbers, not the combat log. So it's a net zero. That's probably why it wasn't caught. It's not in the combat log, and you need to slow down combat and actually watch the red and green numbers. And it probably is due to the unity asset attached to items, that do the on hit or kill effects. Just like the previous "draining issue". The other effects on the gloves work, so the on kill stuff works. It's that one thing that is bugged, usually for when the effect needs a target and it targets the user instead of the now dead target or enemy.

There are also ways to download youtube videos.