Luckmann

And I love how you are going out of your way to make this an issue of inferiority vs. superiority. It's ridiculous to even imply that women stand a chance when we're discussing relative physical strength, on average. And if we're discussing the extremes, the upper percentiles of either gender, the otherwise relatively big differences turns into a massive gulch. This doesn't mean that one thinks that women are "inferior to men". Really, stop trying to shove cultural marxism and political correctness down everyone's throat. The guy stated his preferred gender ratio, as per the thread, and explained why he felt that way, and it's perfectly reasonable to say that "Hey, I find it a bit ridiculous that somehow the 6 beefiest female meatheads of the continent have somehow coalesced and become part of my party, and I prefer to keep it at a more realistic level". It has nothing to do with misogyny or some other ridiculous cause, it has nothing to do with fireballs or magic, or the fact that it's a fantasy setting. It's a preference based on fact and the universe as we know it, which no-one other than the player has anything to do with. He doesn't care if you fill up your party with pink-haired orlan females that kills dragons left and right because you think they're pretty, why would you care if he prefers 1-2 females because of human gender dimorphism? Other than virulent brainwash through rote repetition and offence by proxy? Just adding my two cents? I personally think how much someone works out or the like is far more likely to play a role in who's stronger than gender is. What I mean is I've known plenty of guys with very arrogant and misogynistic beliefs that they're stronger than women by default....but not all of them bothered working out. Then lo and behold a woman that does comes along and outmatches him. Having said that, I recently saw a statistic that was pretty conclusive. It showed how typically, Olympic runners for example (believe it was runners) will have such a gap that the slowest male runner outperforms the fastest female runner. That's pretty damning evidence that would definitely suggest that yes, of course when you have two people both equally dedicated to a physical activity, the male will have the advantage. Likewise and just as a last example, a friend of mine does judo and haekido I believe. Discovered, to my surprise, that I'm stronger than her. I do not work out. The only work outs I have to my name are that walking with one leg is more taxing on your muscles (I naturally build leg muscle) and when I use crutches around the house or the like, then there's some arm muscle. That's it really. So yeah, that was surprising for me but also speaks quite a bit about the advantage men have. The thing is, it's probably true that they're stronger than women... by default. This does not take edge cases into account - as I said, if we're discussing relative physical strength on average, and if we're discussing the extremes, the upper percentiles of either gender, the difference becomes even bigger. Obviously, a well-trained woman could beat out a male couch-potato any day of the week, but in order for there to be any relevant comparison, we have to look at the relative difference. Couch-potato vs. couch-potato, men are stronger. Meatmonger vs. meatmonger, men are still stronger. And although it's relatively likely that I may very well be physically stronger than your female friend, I would not want to test that theory, out of fear of losing a shin or two.

And I love how you are going out of your way to make this an issue of inferiority vs. superiority. It's ridiculous to even imply that women stand a chance when we're discussing relative physical strength, on average. And if we're discussing the extremes, the upper percentiles of either gender, the otherwise relatively big differences turns into a massive gulch. This doesn't mean that one thinks that women are "inferior to men". Really, stop trying to shove cultural marxism and political correctness down everyone's throat. The guy stated his preferred gender ratio, as per the thread, and explained why he felt that way, and it's perfectly reasonable to say that "Hey, I find it a bit ridiculous that somehow the 6 beefiest female meatheads of the continent have somehow coalesced and become part of my party, and I prefer to keep it at a more realistic level". It has nothing to do with misogyny or some other ridiculous cause, it has nothing to do with fireballs or magic, or the fact that it's a fantasy setting. It's a preference based on fact and the universe as we know it, which no-one other than the player has anything to do with. He doesn't care if you fill up your party with pink-haired orlan females that kills dragons left and right because you think they're pretty, why would you care if he prefers 1-2 females because of human gender dimorphism? Other than virulent brainwash through rote repetition and offence by proxy?

Hiravias. He's a druid.

Its one xpack in two parts. I'm expecting 6 to 10 hours per part. Source? Because if that would be true, that'd be really goddamn sad. I would absolutely expect 20-40 hours per expansion pack. 40 sounds a bit much, yes, but I'm referencing it as thresholds. Minimum 20, maximum 40. Anything less than 20 would be unacceptable for a real expansion pack, and anything above 40 would just be ridiculously unreasonable to expect. Those are just freaking ridiculous expectations. It took them 2.5 years to make 40-60 hour game and now you expect them to make 20-40 hours expansions in few months. Prepare to be disappointed I guess. There is nothing ridiculous about those expectations. Obsidian had to make more than just make some new areas and quests. They had to make the classes, develop the rule system, and establish the method in which they create content. Adding new monsters, quests, and items shouldn't take long at all. The only aspect that would be challenging is making the new areas quickly, but as long as Obsidian really stretches the use of the new areas a 20-40 hr long expansion is completely possible. It should also be noted that Jotra's claim of PoE being a 40-60-hour game is wrong. In context, PoE is 60-80h. An expansion being 20-40 is pretty reasonable. For everyone's reference, the last IE game, Icewind Dale 2, started production in July 2001 and was released on August 27, 2002. Production cycles can be short when you have all the nuts and bolts in place. And as for "a few months"; I'm thinking of a full expansion, here. Icewind Dale was released in 2000, while Heart of Winter was released in 2001. Similarly, Baldur's Gate II was released on September 24th, 2000, while Throne of Bhaal was released on June 21st, 2001. So I'd expect about a year before the first expansion for Pillars of Eternity hits - hardly "a few months". We're talking a real expansion here, not piecemeal DLC:s, and I hope that Obsidian also is.

I dont get why people would stealth everywhere. I don't care about find a "Fine sword" around end of the game. I stealth in a new area just because if I dont, enemies will see me when I see them and we will start a battle before I can throw spells at them or, even better, to be melee I can hit them really hard before their spells. It works and it is cool. Options are good, you are using it to find "small Shield", I'm using it to kill the enemies. Because Measured Restraint, Oaken Scarab Figurine, hidden rooms and paths, and several thousands worth of gems and ingredients. That's why you stealth everywhere. Finding secrets and pre-combat positioning is pretty much everything you use Stealth for; it's actually pretty much all you can use it for.

What did it say for duration when you checked the Debuff?

But if they wanted to do that, they could've done that in PoE. I think they should've, but they don't seem too keen on it. Game supports modding, although complex mods need paid version of Unity (because Unity 4.x's paid and free versions don't always have compatible files, if they upgrade to Unity 5 this hindrance would vanish) and their file structure isn't easiest to understand. They don't offer mod tools, because they don't have tools that they could offer, as they didn't make any. Full (meaning that backgrounds don't consist on tiles) pre-rendered backgrounds make making new maps difficult as making maps demands that person making maps actually can do 3d environments from start to finish and understanding how maps work in PoE as there is some specialties that are needed to make them work. I.. I think that most people have a different definition of "supports modding" than you do. If a game can be modded doesn't mean that it supports mods. PoE is probably the least mod-friendly game I've mucked around with for decades. You can't even mod files and then just drop them in the right place - you need to extract, decompline, recompile, etc, etc, etc. It's a mess and the vast majority of the mess isn't remotely accessible, and there's no easy way to resolve mod compatibilities.

I can imagine that it was planned like that to be a sudden plot-twist, but that the delivery fell flat due to other things surrounding it being cut, and therefore was received largely negatively.

The riots happening never really made any sense to me either. It is implied that it's The Dozen that goes bananas, but it still feels.. sudden and forced, with very little build-up. Suddenly there's Dozens left, right and centre, fighting in the streets.

I like Avellone. I'm still totally doing this.

This is an interesting thought. We know the Vailians were more than willing to curbstomp their trade by taking advantage of the situation to go around them with the Glanfathans, I could see others taking advantage militarily, not necessarily by conquering the whole Dyrwood (since that would unify them and you still got to look at how the other nations would see an invasion like that), but taking contested land, 'to bring order' to the Gilded Vale etc. "We're going to liberate you. And that lumber of yours."

This is probably the best solution. Tanks doesn't really deal that much damage anyway, they're there to just block the opponents and soak up damage.

That is not a screenshot. That is a photograph of your monitor.

It should be both flat integer and percentage. The system isn't built around thresholds, it needs to be scaleable unless we want to rework functionality completely. An integer bonus is already scaleable if the bonus applies per every level. Also, clarify my preview post, I would drop endurance gain by 2 or so per level. The impact of that is way too huge. You'd have to rebalance the entire game.

Might and Constitution doesn't matter for a frontline fighter, Perception and Resolve does. And if you absolutely have to choose... Durance. Hiravias has Spiritshift, but it doesn't make up for it by a long shot. My suggestion would be to not do it at all, not necessarily because these are overall terrible frontliners, but because three frontliners is a hell of many frontliners. You'll usually not want more than two, and even that is pushing it. If you do put Durance there though, make sure he keeps using Reach-weapons. That'll at least give you the option of keeping him out of the fire, and there's no actual penalty for when they do start smacking him over the head, anyway. Edit: For reference, Druids have 5 points higher Deflection than Priests, but Durance has a Perception of 9 and a Resolve of 19. Hiravias has a Perception of 13 and a Resolve of 10. This is no contest.

It should be both flat integer and percentage. The system isn't built around thresholds, it needs to be scaleable unless we want to rework functionality completely.

But that's not our fault!

No.

Sorta. Whether it's in any meaningful way.. ehh.. I guess, maybe? I mean, much of what the IEMod does can be considered straight-up fixes to the game, and I'd say that much of what it does isn't just meaningful, but crucial. I wouldn't even play PoE again without the IEMod. It's an across-the-board downgrade that I see no reason why anyone would put up with. Meaningful depends on what you endow it with. Modding levels, modding quests? Probably hard as balls, and modding the game is already a bitch seven days to sunday. I don't think we'll see any major modding, aside from tweaking, anytime soon. It's just inaccessible to the vast majority, not just of people, but of modders in general. I once got it into my head that I was going to change the Attribute bonuses to something that isn't objectively horrible, and I failed to even pin down where or how to change it. It's not.. friendly, and a far cry of the easy modding of the IE games.

What spear would that be? Keep in mind that you can (strangely) still use the vendors of anyone you didn't ally with, and you don't need to ally with anyone to use their vendors, provided you are willing to perform an unrelated quest for them. And it's annoying that all of the talents are useful in general.. except the KotC one; it's only useful to armoured melee combatants. The others are at least useful for everyone to some degree, although the Doemenel one is arguably of questionable value to tanks, I guess. Is there any particular reason why you're writing in a font invisible on the forum background? I have no idea what forum you're on, but on this forum, it's quite readable. It's a dark, dark grey background.

Probably. Not because I prefer turn-based gameplay, but because it is obvious that the developers do. PoE should've been developed by someone that actually enjoys and sees the merits in RTwP/RTS/RTT gameplay, who'd take it as an opportunity to create a system that plays on the strengths of that form of gameplay. Not someone that has repeatedly voiced a very concrete desire to make (a) turn-based game(s). Mind you, I'm not saying that PoE is bad, just that it could've been much better, had it either been a turn-based game, or been developed by someone that genuinely wanted and appreciated real-time gameplay. The thought of taking BG2's encounters and putting them in a turn based game without concurrent combat rounds (which IE games basically are) is frightening. Enemy mage group just won the initiative roll? Yeah sorry, eat two or three Horrid Wiltings, not to mention the thought of Kangaxx winning initiative. Now that would be glorious. You can do just that. BG2 can be played in a turn based style by pausing after every round. To me it makes it a more tactical game as having good initiative really means something then. NWN2 lets you do the same thing. It's a lot of pausing but you can turn of the AI and control every character that way. I think turn based in PoE would be a great way to play. Out of curiosity, how long is a combat round in PoE? The reason I'm asking is because I thought about setting the combat timer to pause after every combat round. It would make it more turn based and since the NPCs don't have any AI they would be easier to control. That's not the same thing. Even if you pause every round or turn, all gameplay still happens concurrently. Also, PoE does not have combat rounds in the same way at all. There is no such thing as a turn or round during which everyone has a given amount of actions.

Opposite for me. Resting bonus only lasts until rest so far in 1.05, but in 1.04, it consistently lasted pretty much forever.

8m is more than enough for "alpha strikes", unless you've completely neglected Stealth, which you really shouldn't do if you are going for alpha strikes. Also, 2m Backstabs with Rogues. Yes please. So you don't mind moving your ciphers and rogues forward more than the tank(s)? Whomever is going to Alpha-strike gets into position before the tank initiates, and shoots when he does. When all hell breaks loose, the tank is still in the front.

Things like Crippling Strike and Blinding Strike works for Backstab when coming out of Stealth, so it should work when coming out of Invisibility, too. Definitely a bug.

8m is more than enough for "alpha strikes", unless you've completely neglected Stealth, which you really shouldn't do if you are going for alpha strikes. Also, 2m Backstabs with Rogues. Yes please.