Luckmann

I agree with all these except arguably 3, but above all else, you missed the single most annoying ****ty goddamn ****ing hnnnrrrgh thing: 9. "Combat Only" abilities preventing initiation of combat with a power. Also, I'd like to add: 10. No individual stealthing and everyone unstealths automatically at the start of combat, preventing any tactical use of stealth, as well as initiating combat with individual characters. Imagine having multiple rogues that all want to initiate combat with stealth, but at different times.

I actually loved the loot interface/functionality of Wasteland 2. Something similar in PoE, although unlikely (and I'd be fine without it, too) would be awesome. Everything in the "Enhanced" Editions appear to be horribly implemented.

I was actually thinking the same thing, but I couldn't be arsed to bring it up. The Wasteland 2 "solution" was actually terrible, doubly so because all of the CNPC:s (which vastly outnumber the ones available in PoE, by the way) actually have proper portraits. It gives a very unprofessional, mod-like feel to it, like something cobbled together, makeshift.

Not this again. I'm 43 for crying out loud. I've done my share of dying and reloading. We're not all konsole kids here. That's a bit disingenuous, PJ. You're finnish. You're all born 43 and stay 24 for life. This is a well-known and established fact.

Does it maybe break Engagement? That'd make sense, and could be useful even if it only lasts for a moment.

Wood with brass inlays, I'd say. I'm inclined to agree with the note on the game status texts, but I actually like the wooden panels.

I.. I hate to say this, and I should be the last to speak since I currently look like Jesus if he was homeless and fat, and Josh Sawyer, I have no idea, he could be the sweetest and most fun guy in the world, but I need to get this off my chest. Every time I see Sawyer, I cannot help but to think that he looks like a hipster douche. If you're actually reading this (which is highly doubtful), Sawyer, I apologize, but damn I can't get over it and I just need to say it before I explode.

They do play somewhat differently, moreso the higher you go in levels. The main problem with the Paladin right now is that while the Fighter and Barbarian either gets powers that can be used multiple times or tactically deployed, the Paladin either gets Lay On Hands (which is terrible; it is also a HoT, making it both odd and bad) which can be used three times per rest, or a one-use-per-encounter-ability (Flames of Devotion; it does Weapon Dmg + 100% as Burn Dmg) that really isn't that strong, and usually gets blown in the first round of combat. After that, it's all auto-attack. Next time you get to pick abilities, you choose between the same initial two powers, plus three different auras, all of which are passive (albeit good), and for whatever insane reason currently is "Combat Only", meaning you have to re-activate it every time you enter combat; you can't even activate it while preparing for combat. I believe this to be a band-aid "solution" meant to artificially inflate Paladin combat actions, making it seem like you actually have two meaningful abilities that you can use in combat, but.. no, not really. As for the various orders, most of the known information should be up on the Wiki. Strangely, the celebrated/condemned behaviours doesn't appear to be listed plainly anywhere, so it feels like you have to sorta guess what to go for for each order, which feels.. odd, considering you are supposed to be part of the order; you'd think you'd know these things already. I haven't paid much attention, though, but I'll check for it next time I'm in-game. I don't think it's listed, though.

Roger C Smith ain't got nothin' on David Warner and Jeff Bennet.

I hate BG2 mages. Period. Anyone who wants to even slightly go in that direction, I am your worst enemy. I don't give a crap about any named encounter, be it Kangaxx, Irenicus, or anyone else. Get BG mages out of my game if they are there, and don't try to bring them in if they aren't. That is the be all end all of my point. Is my "overall point" clear now? I feel that the issue here is that you have absolutely no idea what constitutes a BG2 wizard, since you just said that the only thing that separates Kangaxx from Mage #5 is HP Bloat. Kangaxx. The Demi-Lich with infinite at-will Imprisonment, a lvl 9 spell of the save-or-die variety. I don't even have words for how hard you've disqualified yourself from the argument on this. It's not even called Mage in D&D. Seriously, you have all of my whats. I dislike the incredible discrepancy that exists between the things a Wizard can do and the things... well.. everyone else can do. Bar, perhaps, Clerics, Sorcerers, and Druids. Essentially D&D casters. But like you said, there has to be something inbetween the wet blanket that dies in the initial attack and the glorious demi-godhood of endgame D&D casterdom (although bar PnP, they'll still not be a Kangaxx by any means). To me, it's less about the glasscannon-ness of wizards in PoE and more about the fact that there's simply no counterspelling/spell-tactics at all, which would make it extremely hard to balance wizards. Either you make them tougher to kill, and they will become overpowered, or they remain wet blankets. In BG2, they were tough to kill unless you stripped their defences. Because of how PoE avoids counters like the plague, there's really no remedy that wouldn't severely unbalance things. Without means to strip defences, you can't offer defences to be stripped. Edit: Or offensive powers to be countered.

The only difference between Kangaxx and Mage#5 was his HP bloat. I see where you are coming from Junta, I am just perfectly fine with them being glass cannons. Are you drunk? Kangaxx was much more than Mage #5 with HP. In fact, Kangaxx has incredibly low HP. I realize that's not your overall point, but if that's what you think separates Kangaxx from Mage #5, you clearly don't see where PJ is coming from.

That feeling when you open up the second thread, and realize that even though I haven't been active on the forum for years until quite recently, for whatever reason, that one thread was "Liked" by me already. Good job, old me.

When they first announced "all builds are equal" as one of their design goals I feared it would be this way. What the team fails to understand is that nerfing good abilities doesn't make terrible ones relatively more appealing. It only makes good abilities relatively less useful. You can of course nerf everything to the ground which will only force people to use auto-attack most of the time. Then of course all classes and builds will be equal... as in "equally boring". Whooo, go marxist philosophy.

Yeah, just to be clear here, I was only talking about attributes, not specifically racial abilities. Racial abilities are probably subject to a lot of tweaking and which is the best will depend somewhat on what class you are and so on. I'm not so sure about the removal of Accuracy either, but I'm more concerned about Intelligence now being a very clear Pump-or-Dump stat, the most obvious be-all-end-all for casters, while still useful for many others.

So: 1. PE does have the adventurer's hall. It provides you with as many mechanically useful party members as possible. 2. BG1 threw everything it had and the kitchen sink into its npcs. Remember the memorable characters like Branwen or Dynaheir? You seem to like strong, stoic, and boorish characters. It had those in spades. For the life of me, I couldn't tell why you would want Xan or Adjantis in a party other than completionist and mechanical reasons. 3. Also, you complain about characters being late to BG2, but keep in mind BG1 introduced several characters in late chapters of the game like Cloakwood forest or actually in Baldur's Gate. It takes a lot longer to get Alora in your party than it takes to find Viconia. 4. Finally, Planescape Torment had 8 CNPCs for a 6-person party. Every single one had a superior quantity and quality of writing than any BG1 character. 1) Adventurer's Hall doesn't count. All of the IE games (sans PS:T) allowed you to do that, too, but soulless mooks without dialogue or background doesn't count when it comes to counting the number of available CNPC:s, for very obvious reasons. 2) See, I hated Branwen and Dynaheir, and found them about as memorable as wet blankets. To call Eldoth, Garrick, Xan or Kagain "strong, stoic and boorish" is just sad, but more to my point is that you and I clearly like different kinds of characters; BG1 allowed you to make a party that fitted your character, it allowed you to make a party based around most concepts, and/or it allowed you to just plain pick and choose characters you found interesting on a personal, non-roleplaying level (I would, for example, never had Ajantis and Kagain in the same party, even though I liked them both, personally). PoE won't let you do anything like that (and honestly, neither did BG2). 3) I wasn't complaining about that at all, and I have no idea why you'd think I was. I'm fine with CNPC:s being spread out in places that makes sense, rather than dumping them all on you in the first 1/4th of the game (as PoE no doubt will, and BG2 certainly did). 4) Yes, that is entirely correct. PS:T also suffered from an *extreme* lack of potential CNPC:s. The difference in quality of writing has nothing to do with that; it was most welcome. But PS:T was also entirely different in writing and approach than BG/2, which made that lack make more sense. Each CNPC was functionally unique in every single way, and didn't so much adhere to a certain formula as much as they were unique characters, each, in their own right. The idea of a themed party or a party appropriate to the character has to be considered absurd in that context. But even so, the extreme lack of potential CNPC:s in PS:T was always something that marred an otherwise near-perfect game.

That's not really a question anyone can answer, based on what you are saying and asking. From a objective standpoint, they don't actually matter that much. They matter if you really want to Pump or Dump something, and if they keep the changes to the stats that was in Sawyer's recent Live Stream, Intelligence is the penultimate Caster Stat bar none, but overall, they aren't *that* important. It largely depends on what or how you want to do something. Personally, favouring Paladins, I enjoyed the freedom in v392, and I hate how I'll probably end up having to go all out on Intelligence rather than pumping Resolve (from a roleplaying persepctive, I want high Resolve, but the mechanics, from the Stream Version, forces me into Intelligence), but as of v392, the currently released Backer Beta, there's a fair degree of freedom in most stats, except Perception being incredibly overpowered from a powergaming standpoint. But I digress. My point that I was going to make was that it's impossible to say, because since you seem to be asking somewhat from a powergaming standpoint, it really depends on how much of a powergamer you are. And if you truly want to min-max, of course race is going to matter a lot. Mechanically, the difference isn't huge in v392 (except for the overvaluing of Accuracy, which is granted by Perception) but if you are the type that wants to pinch that last drop out of the system to get the best of the best of your given concept, then yeah, it's going to matter exactly as much as you want it to.

Polish but not Portuguese? ...oh.. kay.

Actually, afaik, it used the same attack animations for all the weapons; including swinging a spear overhead like an axe. Until mods fixed it. So it's not really "per weapon". That being said, BG2 did have unarmed monkish attack animations, though, with kicks and whatnot, for monks.

I absolutely loathe Minsc. In BG1, he was alright, but in BG2, he's infuriating, a clear victim of flanderization. BG2 always suffered in the character department, especially compared to BG1, but the whole thing was exacerbated by the fact that multiple NPC:s were either useless (Cernd) or just plain lolrandum retarded with no redeeming qualities (Minsc, Jan) or one of the good ones even killed off (Yoshimo). Out of all the characters they could've taken from BG1, such as Kivan, Xan, Eldoth, Garrick, Kagain, Yeslick or Ajantis, they decided that some of the absolute worst ones were in the "end party"; Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid, Dynaheir and.. ugh.. Minsc. Even those that they took from BG1 that were awesome, Viconia and Edwin, were relegated to showing up later. BG2 has a great many good qualities, but it could've done far, far, far better in the CNPC department, starting with killing Minsc in a tragic cartwheel incident. And now we have PoE, with a grand total of 8 CNPC:s for a 6-man party. That's nothing short of sad.

I'm using that too, specifically because it changes all the NPC:s and all the portraits in the entire game while adhering to a specific style. The style, imo, doesn't really matter, as long as it's uniform. As long as it's the same and professional, it's all good to me, so I actually end up using PaintBG. It greatly expands upon available options, even if it's not my favourite art style, it's way better than the alternatives. Changing portrait style between BG1 and BG2 was always a bad idea. Keeping the BG1 portraits instead of making new BG2 portraits was an even worse one.

Oh, look, more information from SomethingAwful that really should be conveyed through the official forums, shocker. That being said, fixing percentage modifiers to be additive instead of multiplicative should solve a lot of wonkyness.

...talk about completely misunderstanding what it's about.

This is also where we repeat the request of independent sliders for ambience, effects, voices, and music.

Except that with only 8 NPC:s, you can be pretty damn sure that the style will be pretty uniform. And I hope it really is. It's not 100% uniform at the moment, but they all clearly adhere to a specific style, which is pretty much a necessity for the game to feel professional.

Currently? As of v392, 40 Portraits total. Specifically, as a Female Fire Godlike, 1. Yeah, I really hope they take the time to make a whole bunch of extra portraits. There should ideally be at least three per sub-race per gender (so 18 human portraits, 24 Godlike portaits, etc). The problem with portraits like that is that they almost never fit the style of the game. Even almost 15 years later, I can't find a single good custom portrait pack for Baldur's Gate II that fits the Baldur's Gate II style. The same goes for Baldur's Gate - I'd still be willing to kill for the Baldur's Gate II NPC:s in Baldur's Gate's style.