Monte Carlo

I've played these games for many, many years and I can't beat those damn beetles on normal setting.

I'm as leery as the next person of trying to define what 'spiritual successor' means... ...but it was obz that deployed the term in the KS, wasn't it?

^ Well put, sir. I think that's what people mean.

One of my all-time favourite i.e. game battles is in IWD - the subterranean bridge guarded by drow, spiders and orogs at the bottom of one the later levels. So it's a level 12ish battle, with a number of ways of completing it. When you look at it, it really is quite simple, a piece of open ground with two choke points and some enemy archers. But it's enormous fun and feels epic.

I'm wondering if people are confusing 'too hard' with 'to confusing to manage properly.' Big difference. You can't knock PoEs number of options when it comes to difficulty.

^ That's a good point about pre-buffing I hadn't thought about, another of Sawyer's (many) bugbears. Is using buffs in battle any more elegant or enjoyable? Especially, when as currently constituted, you don't know if they've even taken effect half the time.

It's too early to tell because we don't know much about NPCs and plot. If they are utterly, utterly *brilliant* then they might mitigate the soulless, dull combat and dour, mechanics-obsessed systems behind them.

I'm pretty much with you, and the brigaded team inventory doesn't help. Don't get me wrong, BG1 & 2 wasn't much better (all your character / class details in that itty-bitty scrolling screen to the right of your portrait) but a generous-sized character screen with explanations of mechanics in an guide-for-dummies style would be a massive step forward.

I'm one of those people who needs to work towards ironman modes slowly. I usually start games on hard (i.e. the core rules setting in BG2 or hard in a game like DA:O) then understand the rules as I work up. In FONV I never really got into the hardcore modes, as its one of the very few RPGs where I tend to enjoy the story and setting as much as, if not slightly more than, the gameplay.

You don't take kindly to anything as far as I can work out.

A series of romance novels involving women copulating with dinosaurs and fantasy creatures. He does so under the pseudonym Christine Sims. Busted.

Hmmm. This is my off-duty forum so I don't pimp my writing here.

We need to form some sort of special agency to police how others choose to play a non-competitive single player game.

I'm finishing a proposal for my new novel for my agent. That's the bit where you have to write - Synopsis Market positioning report and [nearest] comparable titles Sample chapters (1-5) Chapter-by-chapter summary (the hardest and most boring part) On top of polishing the original script (almost 90,000 words). Plus I've a title coming out in the next few weeks and I've proofs to look at and emails to reply to. I also have a day-job. In between chapter summaries I add sweetness and light to the PoE forums to take a break from it all. Before I started writing I thought a magical being took my script and voila! a novel would appear. No. In the days of decaying legacy publishers, the digital apocalypse and shrinking advances you have to do more and more work yourself.

Combat feedback and pacing.

Yup. I like Watcher's Keep too. Not as much, admittedly, but that might be a super-level issue. Am I allowed to like both?

I'm working.

* shrugs * lots of people seem to take attacks on the game personally for some reason. Dunno why.

^ Hmmm. So glaringly broken mechanics are fine as long as they make stuff tougher because that's what you like? I'm happy it suits your preference, but it doesn't mean it isn't broken.

I don't loathe it. I want to like it. I'm just struggling. I do wonder if shrugging off criticism using the logic that "heh, you always get people who are angry" is totally helpful though.

It matters not - the core issue is this: The mechanic means that the designers have to up the difficulty of encounters in cities for no other reason than to satisfy the mechanics. A design problem? I would suggest it is. It seems glaringly inconsistent to have scaled encounters everywhere else but not in a place with multiple resting zones, just to feed the machine.

Alternatively, it shows a completely slavish adoration for novelty despite the obvious flaws in the new system. Look, nobody thought this was going to be BG3. It's a bit unfair to keep flinging that around. If you like what others see as glaring design flaws, borne out by actual game play, then good luck to you. There's a nasty streak of censorious snark towards sceptics on this forum. It stifles discussion, even the sort of strident discussion you clearly don't favour. You need to live with it and take it in your stride. The forums are awash with shills and fanbo1s, people who would dig anything Sawyer came up with. I take them in my stride. let them have their say --- but they do seem to be the ones knocking the other side personally.

I'm sorry about that. I'm waiting for a patch, or more likely bowing out until release.

Any idea on a date for the next patch?