Simon280586

I can confirm this. I also have an Antelope companion. I get '+ X pierce damage' in the tooltip for my ranger but not the companion.

To add to this: how do I know how far 4 meters are in combat?

This is also something I've been wondering in relation to my ranger's ability (accuracy bonus if more than 4 metres from target), and I'm also contemplating the Marksman talent (which gives bonus vs 'distant' enemies). I haven't noticed any UI indications of whether these effects apply or not. It would be useful to know.

I agree. In particular, the red-headed bard in the inn (can't remember her name) spouts a lot of historical exposition at you, but there's so many different place names, nationalities, roles and titles that it's very difficult to digest. Granted, it may be easier to understand if you play the game from the start, but it did seem to be going a little overboard with the made-up words. At one point, if you ask her what a particular word means, she says something like, 'it's basically a knight'. Well, great. If we're going to have made-up titles, it's a bit lazy to define them by reference to things we already have names for.

Interesting. I was thinking earlier about how the combat reminded me a bit too much of action-RPGs, a genre I'm not really a fan of. Lots of damage numbers floating around, hits that barely seem to have an impact or reaction, fast movement, flashy effects with bright colours, a focus on DPS, etc. Still, I'm sure I'll enjoy it much more once it's gone through its final polish.

Ah, I've realised that the dots in combat are health bars. Thanks frostphoenix for the reply. As for impressions, the game looks beautiful and really captures that Infinity Engine feel. The combat, however, feels too fast to me, and gets a bit visually cluttered with too many effects, colours and UI elements. Some ideas: have an abilities/items toolbar at the bottom of the screen with big icons, and hide/move the menu move action timers to the toolbar, with a green 'ready' checkbox - after all, when you want to use an ability, you look at the toolbar make hits feel more impactful tone down some effects: for instance, the wizard spell 'arcane veil' looks good but needs to be a bit smaller and less opaque so as not to obscure the combat other effects could be improved - for instance, the priest spell 'divine terror' looks decidedly not-terrifying remove health bars and rely on portraits and mouse-overs instead slow combat down in general In general terms, I'd like combat to feel less like a brief, hectic skirmish. The IE-style combat felt more drawn-out (in a good way), where characters would fight but not always be able to land a decisive hit every few seconds. So when the hits landed, they felt good, they felt decisive, and they altered the dynamic of the engagement. In other words, they felt meaningful. The combat felt like a sandbox environment: it would continue mostly without your input, but intelligent and timely use of abilities could alter the course of the battle, and you could experiment with different combinations without feeling rushed. That's the sort of feeling I hope Pillars of Eternity can capture.

Quick question: what are the red/green dots that appear above characters in combat?