Luckmann

Lightning Resistance and Corrode Resistance? That said, it should list what it is and where it comes from. A lot of games really fail with the "where it comes from" part of tooltips, but it's really, really helpful in learning the rules and figuring out if something is or isn't working.

You don't want to call it Armor Class, people will think it gets used in the hit resolution equation and wonder why there is more than one value too... Anyway, they didn't remove the second value just to put it back in, the system of two damage resistance stats was redundant and added a layer of complexity to the damage calculation. I personally think they should remove all the percentage based stuff and go with fixed values everywhere. Screw the pretty curves on the graphs I say. Difficulty to balance notwithstanding, I'd personally prefer not one or two aspects to armour, but three; Damage Resistance (Percentage decrease to physical dmg), Damage Threshold (Flat decrease to dmg) and Dodge Modifier(s) (Penalty or even bonus to Dodge). Gives you the possibility to really differentiate between various forms of armour, magic or otherwise, and specialize based on that. The armour system in PoE is currently actually very flat, scaling more or less linearly between DT and Action Speed. It's not nearly as varied as the weapons, where I actually feel they've done a competent job of differentiating between all the various weapons (although some are clearly worse or better than other, atm, the bits and pieces are there). It's just crazy that currently, you're usually best off just going in naked and try to kill everything before it kills you, and even if they revampt the values, it'll most likely end up just being a choice between really heavy armour, the lightest possible armour, or no armour, with no niching or specialization within the various forms of armour (ring mails vs. scale mails, full plate vs. other heavy armour, etc).

*quiet

It should also be noted that in the game files, one of the companions is just called "Priest". I actually just skimmed through them really-really-really-really-really quick to count how many there were total (11) as to not be truly spoiled, but I couldn't help but notice that, likely because of how the brain works with piecing together patterns from piecemeal information (whereas it obviously can't do that with names, unless it's names you are really familiar with). I also noticed that one was simply called "Mother", which somehow feels even creepier than if it had actually been called Grieving Mother. I'm still going to clamp my eyes together, cover my ears and keep hoping that this is all an elaborate plot and there's actually more CNPC:s in the game, because 8 is painfully, painfully few.

Oh, please. Narrow it down to "best piece of comic relief writing in an wRPG" at least. BG2 deserves to be admired, but there must be some bounds of reason. Btw, thanks for the topic, PrimeJunta! Enjoyed reading it a lot. >implying there are non-WRPGs that are RPGs.

What choice are you talking about here? My memory is fuzzy. After you complete the Aslyum at Brynnlaw you get a choice whether to sail back to the mainland or make the journey through the Underdark. If you choose the ship you get boarded, sunk and you enter the City of Caverns. You eventually make your way to the Underdark. Or you just choose the Underdark and lose that entire area. Oh god, that's.. I've played Baldur's Gate 2 completely through at least 5 times (probably even more) and I can't remember ever noticing that. That's huge. I love how incredibly railroaded that is, too. It's like a GM that gives the players a choice, and the players are like "Nah, we're just going to take the ship back to the mainland, the Underdark sounds dangerous." and then the GM just goes "Rocks fall, ship sinks, you are now in the underdark anyway". Well no matter the Crom Faeyr, I just assumed that the reason you got the Cloak of Mirroring in the Sahuagin City was specifically to help you deal with the Beholders in the Underdark. Colour me surprised. You also miss out on the Rod of Lordly Might, Gauntlets of Crushing, the Wave Blade, and the Boots of Etherealness. Not to mention a metric ton of experience and a treasure trove of magic scrolls.

I wouldn't judge "best group of developers" based on their latest two games. I haven't played Larian Studios Divinity: Original Sin yet, but most everything before have been meh at best, and while InXile's Wasteland 2 is really great, their earlier titles were.. well, I understand that they had to take jobs to survive, but let's just say that there's not much to go on. Meanwhile, Obsidian's chief issue throughout the years seem to always have been an inability to completely finish what they set out to finish, and working on other people's IP:s. But the actual stuff that they actually did they did really well.

What choice are you talking about here? My memory is fuzzy.

I would advise trying (at least) BG2Fixpack BG2 Tweak Pack (unlimited item stacking yo - and the rest) BG2 Unfinished Business One Pixel Productions at the very minimum The game is so much better with mods. I haven't tried One Pixel Productions and I never heard of it before. Does it bring back the non-sucky helmets of Baldur's Gate 1? The new helmets in Baldur's Gate 2 were atrocious.

Also, not all engines are equal. My (admittedly limited) understanding is that Unity is made to be fairly upgrade-friendly, not breaking old functionality and so on.

They're pretty organic, though. After all, why wouldn't you protect yourself from magic when facing a demi-lich, and why wouldn't you protect yourself from undead when facing.. well.. any undead? Especially the Shield of Balduran (and the Cloak of Mirroring) feels like something an intrepid adventurer would whip out when going up against the beholders. They just feel cheesy because it makes the encounters "too" easy, I guess. That being said, like Sensuki said, there are actually quite a few ways to beat him. Fire Elementals come to mind.

I'm still not convinced that it's true and without hard evidence, I'm going to chalk it up to the placebo effect. Edit: I actually looked it up, and it's not as easy as "in shadow" because it's actually very hard to tell when you're in shadow or not, just by the landscape. For example, being behind a door doesn't constitute "shadow". There is, however, a very easy way to check: your model. During night or when in darkness, the hue of your model changes to a darker tone. This gives you a bonus to hide. There is no bonus to hiding in "shadow" at night, and your model doesn't actually change. So yeah. Also, interestingly, when it comes to actually hiding (no idea if it affects detection), Hide in Shadows and Move Silently counts just as much. Edit: Might as well link the rest of you: http://forum.bioware.com/topic/357939-thesis-hide-in-shadows/

Without metagaming, Kangaxx is easily the hardest battle in the game, especially when you first (can) go up against him. It is very much a "I can't beat this, I'll have to come back later" encounter (which I don't actually mind in games). Two readily available scrolls (one more than the other) cheeses the Kangaxx encounter if you so desire: Protection from Magic and Protection from Undead. Nope. Interestingly, Raging Barbarians are immune to Maze, but not Imprisonment. Raging Berserkers, however, are immune to both Maze and Imprisonment. Minsc (if someone is using him for some reason, god dammit, I hate him more than Imoen) has his own special snowflake thing going on as a ranger and his Rage gives him immunity to.. a bunch of stuff, but not Imprisonment.

To be honest though, I have never heard or noticed anything about Stealth working better in "shadows" in BG2. Distances and line of sight I've always known to matter, but "shadows"? Never. And I've played *a lot* of BG2, fare moreso than any other IE game.

I looked up your post to see if I could help you confirm it, but your one submitted bug can't be confirmed, because there's really nothing to go on. Sensuki asked you to upload your savegame, but you haven't, and without any additional information as to what caused it, there's.. really nothing to go on. You're floating in limbo a much as anyone else is based on what you reported. Just saying.

Lets hope this is true and lets hope OE surprises us. Afterall InXile did implement new features and made big changes between last beta and release version. And kept improving the game months after release, and got quite good reviews despite not initially having a lot of late game bugs ironed out (though now they are.) Speaking post-release, I hope Obsidian is more willing to revisit mechanical issues that aren't necessarily bugs than InXile appears to be. I think they are hesitant to revisit balance and set mechanics because it would alter gameplay in one way or another, which might "interfere" with people's gaming experience or change their set assumptions (such as everyone knowing that Assault Rifles are superior to everything in Wasteland 2). But I think that modern audiences as a whole are actually more forgiving in those regards, having grown accustomed to relatively big updates or game changes, DLCs and whatnot, and are more likely to respond favourably to positive gameplay changes than maintaining questionable mechanics in the interest of consistency. We'll see. Obsidian doesn't have inXile's budget. Pillars of Eternity raised more than Wasteland 2, no? Or did your point just fly over my head?

Arrows of Detonation, Arrows of Dispelling, Acid Arrows, Piercing Arrows, Poison Arrows, and so on and so forth. I really liked all the different kinds of ammunition in the IE games. I'm sad to see them go, likely because some consider ammunition an "inconveniance".

Place portraits on top of the action bar(s) and then just drag the whole log from left to middle? A proper nice and wide log would be awesome.

I'm going to really miss ammunition, though. Lots of really fun things that you could do with that.

Female Deathlikes get an almost perfect "helmet"-looking growth. I'd love to see something similar for male Deathlikes. Right now, all the male options are downright gaudy.

Greater Malison, Doom, Doom, Doom, Chromatic Orb. Dead Dragon. But yeah, I agree that absolute results are actually way easier to deal with than swingyness. You're just "Well, I guess that didn't work." rather than "Gaaah, why did 4 people take single-digit damage and 2 almost died?".

But those are two different things. Having acccess to the beta and participating in beta discussion(s) are two completely different things.

Be aware that the wiki is sometimes very outdated, though. Just a heads up.

And of course I completely and utterly missed the one thing that actually sparked the thread. Yeah, it feels very odd that none of them have bonus accuracy with War Hammers. I realize it's not DnD, I realize that it might not fit one of the chosen gods like a glove, but a Cleric with a Warhammer is so iconic that I think it'd be strange to leave it out. Also, the Talents and their benefits should be mentioned in the discription of each of the Deities upon character creation. Without prior knowledge of the rules, there's actually no way someone would know that Magran would favour Arquebus (Arquebuses? Arquebi?) and Swords, or Berath maces. It is very possible someone chooses to take Magran as their Deity, but actually consider the use of Maces (Berath) more integral to their idea of what they want to play. As it is right now, he could go through the entire game not knowing that had he only taken Berath, he could've used Maces to his heart's content.

Obsidian, just give Bester a job, already.