Luckmann

More quickly swigging of potions might actually be quite valuable. While a high-Might character might have a higher DPS total, someone with a higher action count have more options and can change what he's doing from action to action. Might (no pun intended) end up being worth it, it's hard to tell.

Yeah, honestly, it might not be that bad. With item bonuses, bonuses from resting, and mechanics being boosted by expendable lockpicks (which I have no doubt will be a simple gold tax in the end), it might just be spot on and we'd just never notice in the Backer Beta. Good point. Because muh Rogue Loremaster/Archaeologist.

It's an average spread out across the game (or a large portion of it). It's actually more useful when it comes to determining relative build viability and character competence than staring at the numbers, precisely because enemy defences vary and are hard to account for since there's not a one-size-fits-all generic enemy that you can be assumed to test yourself or your party against. So yeah, hits and crits are displayed, might as well display misses and grazes. As a funny side effect, we can get a perverse pleasure out of seeing how many swings a character has taken during their career.

Thankfully, no, PoE does not have "respec". PoE has always aimed to be a roleplaying game, and deliberately moves away from the no-consequences paradigm. One could argue that PoE has a number of key flaws when it comes to oldschooling it, but this isn't one of them. That's not an argument, though. Just because people can and will break core concepts of the game doesn't mean that those core concepts should be breakable by default in the game itself. Sensuki and Bester would never use "We're going to mod out the Engagement mechanic anyway" as an argument against Engagement. It's nonsense. The infinite stash is ridiculous too. A being worse than B doesn't mean that B is good. False equivalence.

Yeah, they really seem to stand out and it's very jarring that they even exist. A lot of them have.. well.. let's say less-than-thematic names, too. I think it was mentioned somewhere that you could turn it off, so I'll probably do that, as long as it doesn't actually lock out content.

I see nothing wrong with that. Barbarians don't necessarily have to be all dumb It's not that it's wrong, it's that it's plainly one of the most optimal choices. The goal should be for all Attributes to be somewhat equally viable in some capacity for each class, and it'd be nice if the attributes matched up somewhat with the overall class concepts. It just feels fundamentally odd that Intelligence would be a pump stat for Barbarians and Resolve would be a dump stat for Paladins. You don't have to build anyone in a very specific way. You don't have to even spend your points on creation. I'm strictly talking balance and class concept, here.

I second this. There's really no such thing as too much information.

Can that too be restored? Do we have the technology?

Something that would alleviate this quite a bit would be if they actually allowed you to spend Skill Points on the first level. Since the cost of Skill Ranks are multiplicative by rank, lower ranks are much cheaper than higher ranks. Yes, it'd only be 6 points, but given that that is potentially 3 ranks (if placed in a single skill), I think it's a meaningful difference. As it works right now, the game is a bit schizophrenic on skills. On one hand, the skill system itself favours diversification (since lower ranks in non-prime skills are cheaper than higher ranks in your "main" skill) but on the other hand the checks themselves "in the wild" seem to favour complete specialization. They need to be looked over a bit for sure, but first stop, I'd like an "extra" levelup's worth of skill points on character creation.

Same here, back in the day I enjoyed playing BG1 with Ajantis + Jaheira + Imohen + own character fighter/mage/thief. Less micro-management, less clicks (I'm a lazy person), and it just worked as well. Hopefully PoE will be reasonably playable with 4 party members. *gasp* You monster!

You should probably have added a "No clue."-option.

If we could choose between 20ish companions in PoE 2 that'd be awesome. I won't be happy until PoE has at least 32 CNPC:s.

And it really grinds my gears, because for roleplaying purposes, I was going to play a high-resolve Paladin (charismatically imposing, socially durable), but for Paladins, Resolve is nearly useless, so I'd pretty much be shooting myself in the foot. Hilariously, Intelligence is now the best (or one of the best) stat(s) for Barbarians, too.

This is getting really tiresome, since I've stated my point quite plainly several times. My point is that the PoE Stealth system is shallow and tactically uninteresting, with virtually no meaningful application, particularly in combat. It is impossible to do many of the things that were possible in the IE games or make tactical judgement calls that were possible in the IE games. Why on Earth would I want to remove the dynamic detection? What have I said that could possibly be misinterpreted as something so idiotic? Or are you just fighting windmills here? Dynamic detection is neat. That's it. That's what I said. It's neat. And it is. But that's also all it is. I wouldn't want the game without it, I think it's good, but it doesn't actually add anything meaningful. It doesn't let you make tactical judgement calls, it doesn't give you options in combat, it doesn't really do anything. By this point you're perfectly aware that I know exactly how Stealth worked in the IE games (well, BG2 at least; I'm not sure if anything was changed for IWD2). And no, it didn't care about the monsters once you were in Stealth, unless they had True Sight/Stealth Detection/Search (and a whole range of **** that would slap you silly and maul your poor thief). Like I said repeatedly, the dynamic detection in PoE is neat, and it is certainly more advanced than what was in the IE games. But the overall Stealth system is certainly more simplistic and dumbed down by comparison, albeit maybe not on purpose.

That said, they could've done something to reinforce that image, like actually having some house(s) just by the border of the town map that cuts out beyond the map or something. But yeah.

That's actually even worse. There's a difference between saying "Hey, there's already some elven portraits, but we could reeaaaally use some friggin' Orlans up in this brunch" (it is a well-known fact that orlans always eat brunch) and saying "We don't need elven portraits, because the internet is shock-full of portraits that sorta could arguably maybe possibly resemble the PoE artstyle a 'close enough' to be passable". The first is completely reasonable. I fully agree that if we're prioritizing here, we need some more Orlan portraits.

Wrong. The dice roll is not independent of whether monsters are present. The IE games did not have any Hide in Plain Sight-abilities before the "Enhanced" Edition(s). The IE games did allow you, however, to re-enter Stealth (or attempt to re-enter Stealth, anyway) if you were outside of the opponenet's FoV. This was largely irrelevant outside of combat, however, since you could just keep trying until you entered Stealth. But in combat, it was very much tactically significant, since it allowed you to duck in and out of Stealth during an encounter, which of course came with the risk of failing (if you sucked) and wasting time, and forced you to consider whether it was worth attempting to run away and stealth and come back, or stay in the battle swashbuckler style. None of that is relevant in PoE. You freely enter Stealth before combat, and it lasts until combat starts or you are detected (at which point combat starts and everyone, no matter where they are on the map, is forced out of stealth). I spent like a full paragraph just lauding the fact that PoE supports scouting like nothing I've ever seen in a game before, yet you pose this as a question. Yes, you can scout, which gives you a strategic advantage, and scouting is something PoE has actually managed to do quite well; it is continuously relevant and down right necessary on higher difficulties, because a lot in PoE hinges on a successful initiation of combat. This is not being questioned. It is, however, tactically irrelevant and does not relate to stealthing directly. It is a by-product of the combat system and game mechanics (especially Engagement, as much as I dislike it's current implementation), and stealthing only plays a role in so far as being necessary to carry out the actual scouting. I've never noticed it, because the amount of times you'll actually care about this is pretty much never, unless you're building an all-stealther party on purpose (which you'll pretty much have to if you want to use Stealth in any tactical capacity, due to the aforementioned all-or-nothing Combat Mode vs. Group Stealth). That being said, like I said earlier, while the detection mechanic is more advanced in PoE compared to IE, the actual functional parts of the Stealth system in PoE is extremely shallow. Yeah, it's probably more "engaging" than IE Stealth, but it doesn't actually matter nearly as much. The only nice thing is really that the entire party CAN Stealth at all, whereas in IE, it was limited to Thieves. Obviously this alone necessitates a dynamic detection mechanic, since it would've been absolutely broken up the wazoo in IE if the entire.. oh, wait, Mass Imp. Invisibility. Nevermind.

Google Translate is available everywhere, but honestly, native language or not, I doubt it would've looked better in Spanish. There's no hope for anyone that butchers paragraphs like this, no matter the mother tongue.

Honestly, if that's the best you can do, I rest my case. That looks absolutely ridiculous next to the pre-existing portraits. I must say that the glitter in the hair and the hilarious bling is just fabulous, though.

No, this is how stealth in the IE games worked - you press y to stealth and a dice roll determined whether you were invisible or not, it didn't matter how close you were to the enemy or how much you moved or how many people were hidden - it either played itself or took control away from the player with its random dice rolls. Stealth in Pillars of Eternity requires judging enemy placement and carefully moving around the enemy and takes into account your party size. You're attributing waaaay too much to the PoE stealth system. First of all, entering Stealth requires absolutely nothing; the only thing that is later taken into account is proximity, and while yes, that is more "advanced" than in the IE games, the actual functional parts of the system in PoE mean extremely little. Stealth is incredibly simplistic in PoE, whereas in IE, entering Stealth was both easier (if no enemies were present) and harder (if enemies were present; but still at least possible if you ran out of their FoV), you were offered a laundry list of potential tactical utility relating to Stealth. Aside from the possibility of getting in a single attack before combat starts, with a single rogue (not that you'll have more, with only 8 Companions and none of them being a Rogue; but let's assume that you're using the Adventurer's Hall for some reason) stealthing in PoE has practically zero tactical application(s), save arguably the strategic value of scouting ahead. Unless you're mentally challenged, stealth requires virtually zero "judging enemy placement" or "carefully moving around the enemy" or "taking into account your party size" (what made you even think that last one, unless you're talking about trying to stealth with the entire party, at which point each character's individual stealth skill is far more important than the size of your party).

The best part is the ending where he apologises if he offended anyone, when in reality the only thing he offended was all dictionaries everywhere.

I suspect that the intent was to do stuff like that, Shevek, but that the load simply became untenable. There's not enough content in the world to account for all those backers, I think.

We're fine with that. It's alright. Just give us the higher-quality stuff. It'll be fiiiiine.

Find me 1. Much like those millions of badly drawn elfettes floating around out there.

What consolization? From what I have seen, this game's stealth system is far more complex than that of the IE games. They could have simply had a dice roll determine whether you were invisible like in the old games, but instead they made a stealth system that takes into account how close you are to the enemy, how much you move and how many people are sneaking. And that breaks for the entire party as soon as you enter combat, no ifs, buts or whys. Aside from scouting (which I've praised PoE for actually making relevant for the first time since forever) stealth is tactically useless, and to even make use of it, you practically have to fight the system to do things that should be completely reasonable. This particular issue has been recognized by the devs in this very thread. You claimed the stealth system in this game was a case of dumbing down when the system itself is a vast improvement over stealth in the IE games in terms of complexity. It's fine to criticize aspects of the game, it's another thing entirely to completely misrepresent those aspects. I'm not misrepresenting the aspects; how it functions right now, and how it will function in the actual game, is what's relevant. And they function exactly like I said they do. That's not misrepresentation, it's fact. The fact that the developers are aware that it's an issue is great, and that they'll look into looking it over later is amazing, but it doesn't actually change anything; it shouldn't have been like this to begin with. The system isn't in any way a "vast improvement" over the IE games as it works right now. The way detection works is neat at best, but functionally, the IE stealth system was vastly superior in terms of tactical utility and combat application. PoE has introduced one aspect that I've praised previously, that was never really a big deal before, for which it should get a huge gold star, though - Scouting matters. You could scout in the IE games, but it never really mattered much. In PoE, it really matters and makes a big difference, for the first time in any RPG I can even remember. But I don't consider that an actual part of the stealth system, more as a joyous side-effect of how combat and encounters work in general. The stealth system is definitely dumbed down compared to the IE system, but I don't think that this was at all on purpose. Yet here we are, with a "Press Y to Stealth" mechanic that pulls the entire party in or out of Stealth, ending it the second combat starts.