Luckmann

Well, I like the Lshape too. But the very best thing, would be an option to move the gui around, as you see fit.... Then ALL of us would be happy This I would actually consider an absolute given with the Default UI - it should absolutely be modular, after all, there's even a mod for the beta that allows you to do that very thing, and it really should've been (with a bit more polish) in the main game. That said, I think that'd be hard to do with a Solid UI. With a Solid UI, it's not so easy to just move things around.

On 3), I would be extremely (and pleasantly) surprised if the companions exhibited individualistic behaviour such as leaving if they don't share your outlook. With only 8 companions in the entire game, there isn't a lot of wiggle room for things like that without severely mechanically cripple people for roleplaying as a given brand of douchery or playing by certain concepts. I think that's pretty sad from a roleplaying perspective, but it is the route they have unfortunately taken, it seems.

The fact of the matter is that our eyes are adapted to going left-to-right (X) rather than up-to-down (Y). Our peripheral vision is extremely limited on the Y-Axis while it's fairly extensive on the X-axis. This makes it annoying and cumbersome to constantly move our eyes to the action (everywhere except bottom, including the top) to the menus (the very bottom). I didn't give it much thought until Hassat Hunter's post above me, but that's probably why I don't like the current UI. The eye's natural resting point isn't dead centre as you would expect, it is actually just slightly above and slightly to the right of the centre; this is likely why this very forum is modelled like it is, and why most games favour having "at a glance"-information to the left; having it to the right means that it interferes with the primary area (the field of battle or whatever), and having it to the left allows it to be right there in the peripheral vision, easily shifted over to. So I maintain that an L-shape would be the best.

I'd avoid offensive auras; I have the feeling that they'd be even harder to balance, because offence mechanically trumps defence 9 times out of 10, and with the nature of auras, the issue would be exacerbated by the number of opponents often outnumbering the amount of party members - and it'd scale by difficulty level, because one of the principal ways PoE chooses to increase difficulty is by adding or subtracting enemies in encounters. With that said, I completely agree with both points. The first point could easily help solve core issues with the Paladin Class by means of the different Orders, and would be flavourful and meaningful in it's own right, to boot. The second point could really make it interesting to have multiple auras, but with that, I'd actually make Auras a single Ability that gives you access to all three (or more) auras, and then you could pick the Abilities that are only usable with different auras. I'm not 100% sure how this'd all work out in practice, due to how the acquisition of abilities works in PoE (maybe the auras should be kept as separate picks, but also give you an ability that is only usable while the aura is on... further incentivizing picking multiple auras? Actually I think that'd be best and work well "out of the box" with the current system; or maybe auras should just give hard bonuses to multiple specific pre-existing abilities when they are on? Zealous Focus could make Lay on Hands instant, and Zealous Endurance could make Flames of Devotion Interrupt, and so forth). Either way, I like the ideas.

It is a mysterious mystery ....you don't have a clue, because you haven't counted, do you?

I guess it depends on the scripted interaction, but from what I've seen so far, the art for the scripted interactions are extremely simple. Depending on what's going on, if you really want things down, I can't imagine that it takes more than an hour for a good artist, less with training. With that, I'm not saying that it was the wrong decision to cut it (although my personal preferences lead me to say hell yeah it was) just that it probably wasn't cut because of that. Writing it all would probably have been a bigger problem than the artpieces.

The primary difference between the difficulties is how many opponents you face - their stats are supposed to be the same, so I would expect the AI to behave identically on the different difficulties too, sadly. The Path of the Damned is supposed to be the only difficulty where the enemies gets an actual boost, as well as throwing the highest amount of opponents against you. I would be incredibly surprised if the AI used more skills at this level, too. Wont classes like the Ranger be terribly under powered on high difficulties? As in most games, balance won't be perfect by any means, so it really depends on what you mean by "terribly underpowered". Strictly speaking, the ranger or any other class won't be more underpowered on Hard than it is at Easy. It'll be more important to optimize at higher difficulties, most likely, that's a given, but that doesn't mean that something is more or less overpowered or underpowered because of the difficulty level.

God, I remember that map. It's a stunning work of art in terms of managing to squeeze in a ridiculous amount of stuff in a confined space. It fills the available space almost perfectly. It's kinda terrible, really, but I can't help but to be impressed.

Poppy****! There is no such thing as reading too much David Eddings! That being said, it wasn't intended as an entirely serious suggestion, merely an example. And yeah, branded is really the same thing, in this context branded by the gods, same as how cattle or horses are marked, so too is the childe touched by the gods branded, marked as theirs, their soul suffused by the divine and the profane in equal measure. Almost anything sounds better than "Godlike".

The primary difference between the difficulties is how many opponents you face - their stats are supposed to be the same, so I would expect the AI to behave identically on the different difficulties too, sadly. The Path of the Damned is supposed to be the only difficulty where the enemies gets an actual boost, as well as throwing the highest amount of opponents against you. I would be incredibly surprised if the AI used more skills at this level, too.

Navigating Athkatla at night in Baldur's Gate 2. OH LOOK A GROUP OF THUGS TELEPORTED ALL AROUND YOUR LEAD CHARACTER YOU'RE GETTING MUGGED OH LAWD. x100.

Heh. I don't mind it so much. I just hate whenever "godlikes" is used as the plural. It hurts my soul. But, I'm not sure what else they'd call them, in general, that wouldn't sound silly. To convey the same idea, I mean. The Deitylike? The Goddish? Those Who Resemble The Gods? The Divine? In seriousness, though, maybe they could be called Branded? Or some other variant of something that means "marked"? 'Cause, if you were going to call a... sort-of-race of people something, based on this commonality, it would be, most simply, "Marked by the gods." The Heavenfell? *further shrugging*. Maybe there's something better out there. I'm not sure. Branded, Marked, Godstouched, or just something in-universe made-up like the Orlan, Belgarn (from the old Aedyrian bel, "God" and garn, "to touch" or "to be touched"; yes, I made that up right here on the spot). It really doesn't matter, but "Godlike" just sounds stupid. It reminds me of every rogue ever named Bloodkiller, except it applies to an entire species.

If I was making an elementally themed wizard the elemental affinity talents would be nice for the 20% damage bonus. Fire Godborn Wizard, with the full range of fire spells decent might and scion of flame (+5 Fire DR, +20% Fire damage) armed with an implement with damaging, and Fire lash ). From a roleplaying perspective, for sure, there is some potential, but with so few Talents (12 levels in the game, gaining Talents every other level, that's 6 total Talents), you'd be hard-pressed to "sacrifice" one or two of them for "roleplaying", since they only have mechanical effects, not narrative ones (if there's any Talent that gives a narrative effect at one point, I don't know about it). I'll probably just give myself 1-2 flavourful Talent(s) via the console on creation and focus on the suboptimal, but that's just me, it doesn't actually solve the overall issue, and even so that requires a very artificial self-moderation that cannot really be implemented mechanically.

Twin Elms, afaik.

They've said that they usually try to get builds out on Wednesdays or Thursdays, so I'd expect Thursday this week, if anything this week.

I agree that it could be nice. Lots of Utility Talents are nice. I'd like to have them. But... the others are better. The more I think about it, the better I think it'd be to split it up into different pools.

But that's exactly how it is. Like I said, it's about cost-effectiveness. For example, the Paladin can get Lay on Hands, which is 3-Per-Rest. Why would I spend it in an encounter to keep a guy up for another 5-10 seconds if I don't absolutely have to? And it's absolutely a tactic to let someone die in terms of effective time use. Either you spend time keeping someone alive, or you sacrifice the time (and resources, in terms of shared Per-Rest Abilities/Spells) that could be better spent on offensive oomph. There are definitely situations where you will let someone die instead of keeping them alive. Offense > Defence, 9 times out of 10.

I think that it's not unreasonable at all to question why they are unwilling to participate on the one community that is their own. The community isn't half as vitriolic or toxic as some seem to want to make it out to be, and even the vast majority of critical posts are matter-of-fact and blunt, rather than insulting or offensive. Obsidian as an entity clearly cannot mandate a minimum amount of PPW, but this is an issue that they should take up and discuss, because I really think it's an issue. Sawyer for example clearly has no trouble interacting with fans as long as he's not being expected to explain his design decisions, which he'd likely be questioned on if he posted around here. I think a large amount of the problems stems from the fact that the developers aren't used to be personally questioned on their decisions, and being questioned without taking personal insult does take practice. It's not something people just suddenly do one day, most people aren't used to have to defend themselves, especially not professionally. So when this whole new venue of thought opened up, a back-and-forth between developers and players, many of them recoiled and retreated to their comfort zones. While understandable and perfectly natural, it's not very constructive.

No. That would be right, assuming that you can manage that particular battle without your ko'd character (think about higher difficulties/smaller parties). [...] The problem really is that often, it is more profitable to just let someone die than to keep them alive. There are numerous situations where you'll probably go "He's dying, so I'll just let him die" simply because it's more cost-effective. This of course assumes that you will manage that particular battle without that character, but if you are making that decision, you've already decided that you'll be able to. It's even a viable tactic. And it really shouldn't be a viable tactic to say "Hey, I'm just going to let him die, because he'll be up and running after the battle anyway, so it's better for him to tie up those mobs for a few seconds extra while I ignore healing him and just blast the enemy." And you totally end up doing that right now. Drunetovich asks a "rhetorical question" that is in no way plain; it is not a penalty to have a character removed from combat. It is a sacrifice; the same way it's a sacrifice to use a Per-Encounter Ability. Arguably more valuable than any (single) Per-Encounter Ability, but it's really the same.

As questionable as the post may be in part ("bla bla bla, men like chicks, bla") he does make a good point, though. Tigrin's last post was in March 2014. When the motivation is higher to go SJWing - relating even to very specific parts of the overall forum instead of the sections where relevant discussion is going on - than to actually discuss the game for which the forums are intended, something's clearly amiss. This is actually way more interesting and relevant than anything else that has been brought up so far, really. It's funny that Avellone would bring it up, because it feels like I see his name popping up left, right and centre in Kickstarter projects. Kickstarter and the Indep. change in the industry seems to be making game development more "natural", rather than closed studios(es?) in lockdown (in multiple senses of the word). Open, instead of insular, and that's a really interesting change, for many different reasons. I can see in particular writers and concept artists and so on benefiting from this, but also "freelance" programmers could be a (viable) thing in the future, and that's pretty cool. People moving fluidly between different projects in different studios that appeal to them, rather than pinning them to projects from start to finish under one corporate flag.

Ah, a fellow purist. I tend to prefer it not because it's the easiest setting, but because it's the only rollup that gets no mechanical system benefits. It gives a lot of freedom without pigeon-holing.

I did no such thing. Now, apparently I can't link to the image for whatever reason (It is not "a racial, ethnic, gender, religious, disablement, and/or sexually discriminating remark" by any means) but it was most decidedingly not a "neo-nazi quote". Yes, Google Image Search. It's a real tough thing, hard to use and hard to find. Only the really edgy have the know-how. No sane person is. Simply listening to the trite newspeak confers 1d10 Insanity Points.

First, if the female photo-threads irk you, as a developer at Obsidian, I'd think you'd ask for their removal. It is certainly not a staple of the industry to have such threads on the official forum(s). When I saw the current ongoing thread, I was actual a fair bit "Oooooh.. kay...?" myself - not that I'm bothered by it, I just thought it was weird, and I wouldn't be bothered by a male version either - although I'd still think it was weird. And while I can see how you'd think they're weird too, I don't see why you'd be bothered by it. But if you are, and you have a solid argument for it, change the board rules. As for degrading feminists; it's not degrading feminists, it's feminists degrading themselves. In any forum where you allow the discussion of political topics, there are going to be leanings you don't appreciate. There is no reason you'd consider that frightening, although if you associate yourself with the people criticism is levied against, I can see how you'd feel insulted. But feeling insulted in that way is probably the first step to questioning your stance; people don't tend to be insulted by facts unless there's some cognitive dissonance going on. And finally, the Off-Topic or General Forum parts of a forum isn't really relevant for the exchange of ideas relating to specific projects, so well there's that. Not true. He specifically mentioned Atlas Shrugged and Capital. (Edit: Also, vanguardism is explicitly elitist. Nothing hypocritical about it.) (Edit edit: but that's another tangent for which this is neither the time nor the place.) And specifically mentioning Atlas Shrugged and Das Kapital doesn't have anything to do with someone's purported politics. There are plenty of supposed socialists that are more likely to have actually read Atlas Shrugged than Das Kapital; I know multiple purported "national socialists" that are more likely to have Das Kapital in their back pocket than Mein Kampf.

Nothing NegativeEdge said has anything to do with Josh's purported politics. That kind of "elitism" (which I would use extremely loosely in this context, because actual elitism isn't bad, but what is generally thought of as elitist behaviour is absolutely devastating) is incredibly common in the (particular western) "intellectual" (read: academic) left-wing. It's not particularly consistent with the supposed ideal, but marxism is nothing if not hypocritical in execution.