Luckmann

I'm not sure if there's an easy fix that they can flip to switch from multiplicative and additive multipliers, but if there is some way that doesn't mean having to go through everything by hand, they really should take a look at it. I know it's been one of your pet peeves (possibly with very good reason) and they really should look into it, and if they have tried it, explain why they opted out of it.

Its their military discipline/doctrine to walk in sync (even when underground or half an acre away - they need to be THAT good) Reading this, now I kinda want the Desynch Movement to be optional, because I can totally see a situation where I'd want all my toons to move at the same time, if I, say, make a whole party of soldiers.

Maybe they lower enemy defenses across the board, maybe accuracy talents become more important. Maybe debuff spells and abilities become more important. Maybe spells and abilities that increase your accuracy become more important. I was thinking the same thing. Accuracy is severely overvalued in the current (v392) system, and Perception was incredibly overpowered (by comparison). By moving Accuracy into a "Talents only" territory and trying to balance the weapon/shield bonuses and penalties (which may be hard, since Accuracy is harder to come by, it's more valuable than ever) they've made those talents matter way more than before. For the Stream Version, Resolve has a potential dump stat problem as pointed out by Stun. If you dump resolve to pump up Perception, you'll loose out on Concentration and Will, but you'll gain Interrupt and Reflex, which.. uhm.. actually, that sounds kinda reasonable, trading one Defense for another, and trading Concentration for Interrupt; that being said, Concentration is less valuable than Interrupt, imo, but that's a tweaking issue. Dexterity remains uninteresting. Moving things around between Intelligence and Resolve has certainly made it harder for my Paladin to decide where to place points. Intelligence is (again) the king of the Casters.

Which file though? (feel free to send via PM) It was simply named CompanionNames.Cs.

I'm sure it does, but honestly, I don't see anyone doing it. It'd be a major, major undertaking (far greater than doing it during the development of the game) for very little "payout". Would be cool, though, for sure. Tim'd probably give the dev a cookie.

I think "harmless" is a rather relative term in this context. I think Josh mentioned something about lighting torches with your head in one video, so at the very least, those things are still hot. Not that it matters much, all Godlikes are snipped.

Dammit, I'm gon' have to miss that. D:

The respect on places like the Codex tends to be greater, because it actually matters there, without the enforced veneer of false civility.

Honestly, Protection from Evil is one of the "bad" pre-buffs, imo. Yes, you "waste" a slot, and that's actually a much bigger thing in PoE than in BG2 (because of how everyone works like pseudo-sorcerers, which I actually think is a nice system), but it lasts so long and is a solid no-brainer bonus at higher levels. There's really no reason not to take it. -2 Penalty to enemies and +2 to Saving Throws isn't a game changer, but it's a pretty nice buff and there's no reason not to take it. Now, in PoE, such a thing would actually be a significant trade-off, because it would take up one of your very valuable slots for something you'd cast once (or twice, assuming Dispel Magic was a thing). It'd almost be like slotting something like a Paladin Aura, which I honestly think is perfectly ****ing reasonable. At least if the actual Paladin auras were more powerful. Ooh! I have. And it was quite hilarious. It was my main character (Kensai-thief) and Seravok taking on Demogorgon on the front lines, while my Cleric (Viconia) and mage (Edwin) were doing their thing in the back. Demogorgon: casts 'beguiling gaze' on Seravok and Seravok turns hostle. Huge friggin problem, since he was wielding Ravager +6 and he was buffed up with improved haste and a potion of storm giant strength. He could have easily one-shotted anyone in my party. Quick thinking time... I had to get him out of the way. Like, Immediately. Edwin: casts Maze. Off to another plane of existance you go, Seravok. Phew...that was close. Wait....we still have a problem. My Kensai-thief is now meleeing Demogorgon by himself. Not a good scenario. Time for some more quick thinking. Viconia: casts Summon Fallen Deva. Sweet, I now have a very powerful Helper. What are you gonna do now, oh "prince" of Demons"? Demogorgon: casts Summon Infernal Host. Now it's my Kensai-Thief and Fallen Diva vs. Demogorgon and 2 friggin Mareliths on the front lines. But hey, that's an even fight.... Demogorgon is near death and when he's gone we're golden (Edwin can take out 2 Mereliths on his own if he really as to.) Wait... Back comes Seravok from the Maze spell...and he's still dominated (?!). He immediately attacks the Fallen Diva. Fallen Diva turns hostile. At this point, I've had enough of this Black Hole of an encounter. Edwin: Casts timestop Edwin: Casts Improved Alracity. Edwin: Abi Dalzim's horrid wilting Edwin: Abi Dalzim's Horrid Wilting Edwin: Abi Dalzim's horrid wilting Edwin: Prismatic Spray -Merelith #1 Edwin: Timestop Edwin: Spell sequencer: Skull trap + Skull Trap + Skull Trap Edwin: Chain Lightning Edwin: Finger of Death - Marelith #2 Edwin: finger of Death - Fallen Diva Time stop expires, Both Mareliths dead; Fallen Diva dead; Serevok Dead. Kensai-Thief uses Rod of resurrection on Seravok. All is well again. Next time I'll pre-buff better. I've done similar things with Abi Dalzim's and Dragon's Breath (or whatever it's called), but afaik, the Demogorgon is immune to Time Stop. Did you miss a "The Demogorgon dies" in your story? I was confused at first. But yeah, there's some really insane, crazy, crazy things you can do in Throne of Bhaal with Timestop+Improved Alacrity. The Tethyrian Army comes to mind. Yes, I realize that they're pushovers and it's not necessary, but just do it and run through the place (with Haste) throwing out Dragon's Breath's (which causes knockbacks), Abi Dalzim's, and, if you still have time, Stinking Cloud and Cloudkill. Hi-la-ri-ous.

Nope. Steam games that don't use Steam's DRM can be launched without the client. Pretty much up to the publisher or whoever decides those things. I don't think I've yet owned a Steam game that allowed this, tho. I've tried just clicking on the game .exe's in directory for example, and Steam client always opens/launches first. Yeah, what games on Steam actually has no DRM, then? I've never seen a Steam game launch without Steam launching first.

It's important for everyone that self-identifies as an attack helicopter or mayonnaise, take this serious, guys, and stop being so damn bigoted.

The Giant Miniature Space Piglet is a pet, not a companion (also known as a CNPC). And yes, the Giant and the Miniature cancels eachother out. I think that the joke reference to Minsc's Giant Miniature Space Hamster is lost a bit, because the Giant Miniature Space Piglet looks positively cosmic, while Minsc's hamster was really just.. well.. a hamster. So the joke is a bit hit/miss. But still, yeah, not a companion. It's meant to be silly because it is silly. If it's any consolation Now I just need to get an otter somehow.

If you are talking about Deus Ex: Human Revolution, you should make that clear, and not confuse it with Deus Ex. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a complete downgrade in all respects except graphically, compared to the original Deus Ex. Deus Ex doesn't allow you to purchase "praxis", it emphasizes choice in character evolution (integrated into the game world, not as a function of arbitrarily gained and spent experience points), it awards you experience based on progress or exploration, and features emergent gameplay second to none. Deus Ex: Human Revolutions is a walking abortion by comparison. It's like comparing Baldur's Gate 2 to Mass Effect 2.

Right now, the answer is very simple. When you ask yourself "What kind of armour is the best to wear?", the answer is "None." The armour system in PoE is currently extremely simplistic; you get DT (why not just call it "Armour?") at the expense of Action Recovery, but Action Recovery is more important, since it decides how much damage you can dish out. Survivability doesn't really matter that much in PoE, you simply need to kill the enemies before they kill you. You are almost always (always?) better off naked than wearing any armour at all. Unless they radically change the system to accomodate more variables (such as Dodge Modifiers, Damage Resistance, etc), I don't foresee this changing; either DR will be more valuable than the Action Recovery, or vice versa. That being said, I really appreciate the freedom, and it really shouldn't confuse you at all. It's really up to you to decide what you want to use in terms of armour and weapons, and I think that is great. I just wish that freedom (esp. in relation to armour) mattered more.

The shared health should be dropped completely.

Sorry, I should probably have given the solution, since we talked about the issue in the bug's section. Just switch between clicking the ability and telling the paladin to move. Eventually he'll get unstuck. Want to *really* wreck yourself? Pick two Auras on lvlup.

You are, in fact, objectively wrong.

Pre-buffing is still useful, and an alternative to casting in combat with an opportunity cost (sometimes it's better, sometimes it's worse - depends on the game, spell and encounter). It could have been better balanced absolutely, but just flat out removing it is simply listening to the ignorant portion of the fanbase only. Baby, bathwater, dumbing down, etc.

I think a lot of people did, due to the way resting worked in (most of) the IE games, so they threw on everything they could, every battle. Haste, Prayer, Death Protection, the works. And then they just rested and repeated. The sad thing is that with the resting system in PoE, such behaviour would automatically be curtailed to a degree, and getting rid of "blanket" buffs (like Bless) or toning others down (like Haste) would solve this issue completely. Instead of sticking to what made sense in context, they decided to introduce mechanics to curtail the autobot-buffing-behaviour and then take out the pre-buffing completely, for some reason. Which is a baby-out-with-the-bathwater situation if I ever saw it. Pre-buffing should be a matter of strategic prepwork, and the cost of doing it should be the spells of the buffer, nevermind the fact that everyone in PoE practically operates under a form of Sorcerer spellcasting, meaning that if you prepare buffing spells, you'd have to sacrifice something else (as opposed to how it largely worked in the IE games). PoE has some mechanics that would make prebuffing work really, really well. It just doesn't have prebuffing for some goddamn reason. Edit: Dang, ninja'd by Sensuki, more or less.

I think it's just an artificial combat action. Paladins suffer from a lack of combat options and actions to perform in combat. Solution? Let's make the auras Combat-only! Genius! It's meaningless filler intended to make it seem like the Paladin has something to do once he's blown the 1 use of Flames of Devotion. Nothing should have a no-combat-limitation. It makes no sense at all. Auras and modals being "Combat Only" make even less sense.

Strategic prepwork. That's really all there is to it and it's well worth it by itself. You are spending spells in order to strategically prepare yourself for an encounter, which is something no other mechanic can really offer in the same way.

I think PJ said it best.

The whatnow?

Ducks! D:

When you've finished BG2+ToB.