Starwars

It's been brought up before but that item is supposed to be a religious text (according to a developer who answered my query about it in the backer beta) for the Skaenites. I agree though that it's a bit weird and there should probably be some additional text or something there to clarify that it *is* a reproduced religious text.

Well, I'm pretty sure it's those guys anyways.

Looking at the STEAM forums, it appears that some people are also experiencing severe FPS loss with the newest NVIDIA drivers. So something seems to be up with that, hopefully OEI takes a look at the latest NVIDIA stuff released.

-After you kill one of the adventuring parties (I think in the quest that leads you to the bridge leading into Defiance Bay, not the broken one), their ghosts show up at the Goose & Fox Inn. -And on the topic of gravestones, there is a RIP peace message to one of the RPGCodex moderators who passed away earlier this year (I think it was, or late 2014). Nice gesture from Obsidian.

... and there we go, good job!

In before SJW and Gamergate warring. There are 3 female companions in the game.

I would defintely want one slot for amulets and one for cloaks.

It'd be awesome if they could incorporate some more of those visual ambience effects for an expansion. Someone mentioned the fog in Ondra's Gift, that's pretty much my fav. When you enter the district and see that, you can almost feel how the air would feel. It's a really nice effect. What would be even more awesome if they could develop some sort of dynamic weather for certain areas. The IE games had the rain and snow that started up at times, I *loved* that. It's just moody. And I would love for it to be taken even further, having morning mists in some areas where it would make sense for example. That's one thing the IE games never had, but would be a beautiful improvement I think. A more dynamic weather system to go with the day and night cycles, the new lighting system and so forth.

I brought this up during the beta but it was confirmed by a dev that it is actually a book that is, well, a real book from the Skaenites that they distribute. So it's not a personal item so to speak.

I would like to play this but I think there's no way in hell my PC would be able to run it even somewhat decently. Maybe some day...

I think the biography is a wonderful idea for the game, great way to sorta... fill out your character, give him a sense of history as you go on through the game. And I wonder... would it be possible, when you finish the game, to somehow have it export to a simple text document or something? It'd be kinda neat to have a collection of various characters that you've completed the game with. Maybe for an expansion or upcoming game?

Adding my voice to the "Hard is too easy" choir as well. And I'm somewhat surprised by this because I am in *no* way an IE game expert. There are people who are way better at it than me. And yet I had very little trouble completing PoE on Hard. I found a lot of the content in the mid-game (Defiance Bay) to be too easy, not just the end of the game. It does depend on where you go first obviously (I imagine going off to fight Drakes at a lower level would be quite hard for example) but... while I'm fine with the *hardest* fights being out of the way, I still want to be challenged on things closer to the main path. Personally, I would very much like to see: A) making it harder to the hit the level cap. I haven't looked at how the XP is doled out in detail but I found it quite easy to get to a point where I felt overleveled. Bounties seem to be one point where there's a lot of XP involved from what people say, and maybe bring down XP for trap-disarms, opening locks and so forth also. B) Making the crit path, and the content "surrounding it" harder. I guess this is a hard one. I admit that I was in the "no level scaling!" camp before but I must admit that I probably wouldn't mind it for the critical path in PoE, at least for areas where it would make sense for the enemies to be really strong (like the ending areas for example, it makes a certain in-game sense that they'd be strong). C) And this is a big one I feel. The top levels feel really wild balancing-wise. I honestly wouldn't mind immunities (or near-immunities at least) being introduced at some point in the leveling scheme because once you get the truly powerful spells in the game, all manner of balance sorta gets thrown out the window. I think if future expansions/games will push the level cap further, then the higher level spells and such will really need to be looked over. There are encounters where certain "win" spells are harder to land but even on those, it's typically not hard enough to keep your party alive until you manage to land that one spell that just completely wins the battle for you Even the bounties (which are the hardest battles in the game, apart from one particular one) are very... swingy in that sense. You can come prepared to them (because you have the advantage, you know when and where they will occur) and then it's just a matter of landing a spell or two of those extremely powerful ones that will just... win it for you. Sometimes, you may need to fiddle a bit with a Priest's buffs/protection spells but it's typically very... I dunno, simple? I would like my mind to go like this for Hard difficulty: "Oh damn, this encounter is not gonna end well... I'm gonna freaking need to unload every goddamn buff I have and bring the enemy defense down as well OH GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING UNLEASH EVERYTHING!" you know? Instead, it's more like "well, it's *this* type of enemy, I'll put up a protection against paralyzation/charm (whatever the case may be), maybe some deflection buff and then I'll unload that petrification/slumber/whatever spell and the battle will be won". Yeah... I guess that's that, the game doesn't push me enough to really try out this wonderful toolbox that it offers (I love all the abilities and spells). My strategy will work almost every time, whatever the encounter with minor tweaks. That was kinda why the Shades were nice at the start of the game, they mess with your tactics. Now, if every enemy had an ability like that (teleporting), it'd obviously feel cheap. But I hope that for the expansion (because this will be out of scope for patches I think) there'll be more inventive encounter design, and more enemies that can really screw with you, and more advanced AI. Make us have to break out of comfort zones.

It seems to be related to areas, probably triggers placed when exiting certain buildings, that's when most banter seems to occur. I've had them in various places in Defiance Bay and in Twin Elms and yeah, in Dyrford. Not always though as far as I can tell, perhaps there's a random chance for them to fire? I kinda wish it would show up in other places as well. It's also weird that Edér and Aloth (for example) doesn't say a word to each other until one reaches Defiance Bay. I think it's perhaps that their banter revolves around Aloth's, ahem, second personality and it's not revealed until later. But it still feels weird to have such a quiet party until you enter the city.

I actually thought Twin Elms was fine. For the type of city it is, I think the size made sense. I also think the locations within it are good. Nice and varied with some interesting backstory and lore. It was also damn pretty. I'm usually not a fan of the tribal tree-cities in RPGs but I thought Twin Elms was excellent, one of the better ones I've played. Defiance Bay may have been bigger and with more content but I think it was not quite as interesting generally speaking. Or rather, the material is there it just... I dunno, it didn't quite have that "bustly" feel to it, the feeling that something lies behind every corner. I like the history, politics and all the stuff within it but I think what the player actually got to do was a bit underwhelming. It lacks A) the smaller, more random-feeling encounters that makes the city "lively" and B) the grander, more sweeping quests. There's just a lot of stuff in between. So yeah, I quite enjoyed Twin Elms but I felt Defiance Bay could've done with more loving overall. Ondra's Gift was a wonderful area though.

-When you defeat Thaos, there is a brief fanfare that plays to accentuate your victory. But this little piece of music repeats again later on in the area(I'm not sure what the delay between repeating the music is). I'm assuming it isn't intended as it is a "stinger" type of music and it rather breaks the mood when it just pops up again.

-I'm guessing this would be troublesome to fix given that the voiceacting is done, but in my game I supported the Skaenites which was reflected in the ending slide for Dyrford, having them take over the town and lure nobles there. However, Edér's slide mentions that he settles in Dyrford, becomes mayor and hunts down the remaining Skaenites. Shouldn't be like that ideally. -Also, The Grieving Mother left me but I still got her ending slide. That may be intentional but I figured I'd mention it.

While I found Pallegina a bit disappointing on my first playthrough, I brought her with me to talk to the gods on my replay. I must say that the interaction with Hylea was a very nice moment for her in the game.

That's not the point though (I would personally much prefer if the game had been designed so Twin Elms was open for business from the start). But as is, it's very easy to miss that there is a flood going on at all, which is making some people go "oh... what flood?" when Act III starts.

The chicken recommended for salads sounds nice as well. And I'm gonna try making the pudding some day, a dish I've never tried to make ever.

They already did in Mask of the Betrayer.

Anyone made any dishes from it yet? Seems the Darkest Rauatai cookies are the most popular ones. Just tried them over here and found them to be damn delicious!

I definitely agree with this. It's very easy to reach the XP cap.

This is not a bug per say but I think it might be good if someone took a look at Od Nuas conversation in regards to its structure again. You can "talk him down" but the way to do so feels kinda needlessly buried under the conversation nodes. It's not that it's difficult, it's just difficult to "find your way" through the conversation to even get the option to try. And moreso, for the main conversation nodes, there really should be an option to [Leave]. There were plenty of options to try and [Attack] but quite hard to find an option to try to [Leave].

Unfortunately I saved over my saves prior to this happening. What happened was that I couldn't keep Grieving Mother to stay during her interaction after the last vision of the Hollowborn in her quest. The descriptive text made it look like she was supposed to leave her equipment on the ground or something before she left but she simply vanished, gear and all.

It's a shame about Thaos being a forced fight I think, though I guess he does seem rather... sure of himself and what he's doing. Still, with the dialogue system being what it is (no insta-win speech skills), there could've been a place for a very elaborate dialogue "mine-field" there I think where you could accomplish something in my opinion. I know you can't talk the final bosses down in the majority of the IE games but it would've been nice to have that take from Torment. EDIT: And with the game being open as it is, have a bit of Fallout 1-ness in that you had to figure out certain things during the game to use as arguments against him.