Ymarsakar

"But i definitely still hold to making stats more interesting from both an rpg perspective and a character creation perspective. Making constitution and resolve more appealing as well as class specific bonus's for stats would definitely immerse a player more deeply into their character. Some people play for the math. " There aren't a lot of ways to make rpg mechanics into stats without making it about the math. Planescape Torment made character creation very role playish due to how dialogue choice paths were dramatically affected by stat distribution, making a 18 plus charisma Torment PC very different from an 18 dex or 18 int or 18 wis Torment PC. But they could only do that mechanically by allowing the PC multi class or class switch, disconnecting the stats somewhat from combat effectiveness. To remove math entirely from RP mechanics, one would have to do an adventure role play text game, which Pillars isn't. Maybe in a few years it might if it adopts Japanese Visual Novel innovations, but right now the text adventures are very minor game plays. If you are playing for the math, then you're not doing role play. That's called a tactical to strategic hard core game, which do exist. Board games have to involve math because there's no computer or super human calculator to do all the math for them. "With respect to the cypher... Wouldnt you then have to balance between intelligence for range, perception for focus and accuracy, AND might to actually damage anything to build focus after you deplet initial reserve. " So you've never played a 3 int cipher, so you think every build has 18 int, is that it?

The druid's spells like aoe hazards and lightning, hit often, which cancels out issues where one big mega spell does half damage due to a graze because it was 2 points off from a hit roll. You'll get a lot more benefit from debuffing defenses by -10 to -40 vs bumping accuracy up 5 points, for example. On the other hand, you can use the perception for interrupts, like the wizard does with the wall of fire. The aoe hazards that cast fast like hobble, also interrupts.

For two handed +15% damage weapons with lash effects, yea. It helps if you have a way to compensate, such as a paladin's aura. By increasing base damage of the attack, lash damage is also increased. Which also works rather well with flames of devotion, and you can turn off the mode if you think you're missing too much.

" Therefore, out of the six stats, you'd have one less "degree of freedom." That is, there would be one less stat that would meaningfully factor into build diversity." Charisma on melee characters in BG 2, people found that "really useful" heh.

Why would anyone use textie speech shortcuts when they are writing 100 words per minute on a mechanical and or physical keyboard?

"The vast majority were just left there. " I don't know what you are talking about, because there are a lot more than two bugs that were corrected. Melee engagement video by one beta tester and various stat rebuilds along with dexterity working/unworking were just 3 of them near the end. If you're referring to the White march patch betas, then we're talking about different things. I mean the pre 1.0 beta Pillars game, before the release. The steam beta patches are just hotfixes they release sooner than the code build is finalized. An actual beta build would be to use Steam's beta feature to upload an entirely new feature list that isn't released, and test the content before finalizing it. A lot of people who prolong their game's alpha stage via fund as they go early releases, tend to be like that. "Not because of it being what it was, but because of the promise specifically made to players that we'll get to shape the story's outcome. Then Bioware broke it." Gaider was working on another project at the time and had handed creative control to the lead writer. Then the lead writer decides to go "high level" as sources reported, and rewrote the ending without the usual feedback from the Bioware writing team. That turned out well. I think "high level" when the universe was created by another writer entirely, might need a period of adjustment first.

Just don't let a Skynet pop out.

Ever hear of the low int cipher?

The quest to make a weapon imbued with your soul was more interesting (and powerful item) than the random effects. Random is pretty random, thus making tactics into luck. That might be fun rolling dice, since people have been gambling on dice since a long time now, but there's little point when the computer cracks the formulas.

The white spire estoc is pretty good. Blade of the Endless I heard was also an estoc.

I don't think their pet interface allows that kind of interaction, but bark strings and various adventure text dialogues should be do able.

Yes special abilities sometimes have an accuracy bonus on it which doesn't show up on the weapons/character sheet. Spells almost always have one. There's also the wood elf ability and marksman, which also doesn't show up, it just gets applied to your combat rolls if you qualify. The dot damage might be boosted by might and the duration is boosted by int, so even if the tool tip says 100% of this damage, go by the tooltip damage on the enemy itself as that is more accurate for the effect.

"I really wish PoE would open up to more modding with some accessible free toolkit." They need to upgrade the engine of unity to the new one that has externalized assets. Meaning stuff like CKII's engine provides. But that is why they are doing the expansions now with the old unity engine, and working on the upgrade for Pillars 2. That pacing was pretty much set in stone once they decided to do the sequel at least. The IE Mod and the various templates there have done pretty powerful things, given the limitations. "Their devs don't even seem to read this official forum." They read the beta forums. And I'm sure they check the content of the forums every once in awhile to see how people react to different systems. But it's a passive approach, meaning they do not intercede or state an opinion one way or another. That's the job of their PR and forum managers, and also bug compilers. Purely speculative, but because Obsidian was able to hire new people, I get the impression that there's some kind of de synchronization between some of the White March content and the old base Pillars content. They've gone rather opaque since the launch of the gone gold 1.0 Pillars, compared to the kickstarter and beta days, so it's hard to say what they are doing. Which is part of the issue. Without transparency, even if people wanted to give them advice or feedback on systems early on, there's just no information there to make a judgment on. When did people hear about the details of Soulbound weapons? When they finished the content for them already in dev blogs? What is the point of getting feedback when it's too late to fix a broken system? A pretty infamous example of what happens when developers get too into the zone of their own experience and viewpoint, is Mass Effect 3's ending. But that thing is so "special" that it probably biases people too much one way. There is also Eve Online, but most people won't know the stories about that or how the CSM helped block off a lot of bad/wrong features. The bigger the organization, the harder it is for the managers to know all the details, which is why a different pov can be very effective if information is transparent enough to allow that. Star Citizen is another example of what happens when the funding is so sky high that there are no external or internal limitations. If everybody is just going along with the flow, it doesn't make for good ideas. Or to put it another way, having good ideas doesn't mean executing them well, but with unlimited funding people tend to just creatively cross from one idea to another new one. Star Wars 4-6 was made on a budget because the production guys kept telling Lucas that he should tone it down, that it wasn't possible to do this or that. Then Lucas got mega funded and made Star Wars 1-3.

"I was promptly eaten by wolves after taking my first step outside." The 1.0 PoE build by Josh Sawyer had that as well, a little bit of nostalgia until too many complaints came in and they tweaked it a bit. The wolves were soloing my cipher. 2v1 my cipher would die. Of course better armor would have helped and if I had hit the level button to 2 or 3. But one wolf was the limit of my cipher back when it was 1/6 party.

The only thing you can't customize about the story companions using IE Mod is their gender/race. And even the racial traits can be added in artificially, if you don't mind some weird duplications. "I used to serve my country lol)" Did you have incompetent bosses like Palle has? Or go around evading orders by "better to ask forgiveness than permission"?

AI issue the 2.01 bug brought along, they fixed it in 2.02 as mentioned above.

You're responding faster than I can edit my posts with more info. Ora, heh. But that's been gaming industry for awhile now. One reason why Elder Scrolls is so popular is because with easy user mods, people tend to "fix" certain issues before the developer is even aware a certain player base wants it changed. With Kickstarter system starting with Pillars during pre production, Obsidian punched out a few ideas, they had threads about new classes, old classes, nostalgia classes and game mechanics. That's where the most good comes from criticism and feedback. Later on, when the production pipeline is up already, there's not much anyone can do about changing fundamentally broken or inefficient systems any more. Well they could, but it's like the ranger rebuild and rebalance from 1.0. It took several months.

Fighters, paladins, monks, rangers, and chanters are pretty easy to use classes. I think for people without a lot of time, they might want to focus more on those classes and less on the more complicated setups. IE Mod allows class changes.

The flail of ages took forever to build but was one of the only things that could damage the demilich other than magic missiles. But it's why in BG1 when you got out, people tended to get killed by a dire wolf. Especially if they chose a magic caster as their main. Well, also true! I've never done mages as mains - in BG 1 my main was whatever passed for half-elf ranger (I *think*.... been a LONG time) and I made my own party, dropping Imoen (annoyed by stuff like that....) for a "self-made" rogue, and adding also self-made cleric, pally, mage, fighter (classic mix....) I'm pretty sure if it had only been me n Immy, we'd have been dead the second we stepped off the property.... I didn't use multiplayer save games, so I went in as wizard + Immy. I was able to kill the direwolf, but only by learning kiting and mongol horse archer tactics. I actually think Obsidian's enchanting system in PoE is the best one they have come up with. Sure, Fallout Las Vegas and the crafting system there was more funny with the mini nukes and what not, but Obsidian always tends to go for "too much" with their crafting system. So something easily picked up like the enchantment 12/12 slots and making food, is actually pretty tame for them compared to Mask of the Betrayer.

I dunno about LotR.... but BOY do I know about wow. 8 years there.... and if blizz hadn't done the idiocy that is wod and no flying in current content, I'd probably still be paying them. But yeah, your point is well taken. If your game (talking to the devs here) provides a limited (as in non-respawning) number of mobs, you simply shouldn't make soulbound weapons which require a given (fairly large, and/or smaller but REALLY SPECIFIC) number of kills which are no longer available to those who have not micromanaged the setup. Yeah, I CAN (and do/did) micro the setup - but I've been playing these games since the mid-80s so I can figure it out before getting into a situation where there's no really good result. Lots of people don't have decades of experience to rely on with stuff like this. [And.... I'd really have much preferred that I didn't have to overthink this - but you (the devs) left me no choice.] They're basically working blind at this point. With PoE, they received a lot of votes and community feedback. White March was released entirely without that kind of feedback system. So when they think they have the systems done, and then make a new one like soulbound "legendary" weapons, they don't have it done as much as they think they do in the concept stage. Once it gets out of the concept stage and players play it, they can't change it any more except by using more resources in 3 months. Oops. The reason is because they need to have the pre alpha concepts down before production begins. Meaning pre production needs to be iron tight, and after that is done, the production pipeline for making content for legendary weapons can begin. But it cannot be easily interrupted if the concept needs a rework or is completely broken, without expending many more months of time which they don't have for expansions 1 and 2. Which is why getting a gamer's point of view before production starts, during pre production, makes for better feedback on systems. What usually happens is that people release a slightly working, slightly broken system, then 50,000 complaints come in and the developers find 90% of it to be incomprehensible, washing out the rest that is beneficial.

Turn on slow mode for every battle. You're probably trying to micro too many things on screen at once. Stick to one character, ignore everybody else, and watch the combat log to see what is going on. Have fights with civilians and guards, 1 on 1, to see how each class works. Tides of Numenera and Xcom 2-3 (easy mode) is also turn based.

Why don't you try out all the classes then instead of relying on what you heard. IE Mod allows story companion and PC class changes.

Some coder content creator decided to create a -10% attack speed drain attribute on weapons and named it "draining" which is the same as endurance draining on various stiletto and flail uniques. This caused the mod to be replaced by the other mod. In 2.01 they tried to fix the draining mod. In 2.02 they renamed it again and seemed to have fixed it. But on GOG manual update, it breaks the patch because the patch doesn't recognize the drain as being the same file. Galaxy is needed to replace the files. In the patch notes thread, there's someone that uploaded the drain file. Just download that for 2.02 and replace it in the asset bundles folder and it works.

This is what happens when Obsidian tries to copy ideas off World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings. This isn't an MMO and it wasn't supposed to be designed like one either. Want to know how Planescape Torment leveled up unique items? You did dialogue puzzles and advanced the plot, then they would upgrade.

Eder's very easy to learn how to use and it's probably what I would recommend for people without a lot of time to learn PoE mechanics. But I have to drop him from my party list usually now a days, because unless he's using two handed weapons or dual wielding, he doesn't contribute as much as the paladin or monk does to the front line.