Luckmann

This, actually. I would really prefer it if they spent some time revising and revisiting existing content rather than staring themselves blind on muh balance.

You people let people live? I only have 1 prisoner and that was by accident.

It's a Talent, not an Ability. It expressly applies only to reload.

Don't worry, it's also "common knowledge" that detection is based on Perception or Stealth (or both). PoE is good and PoE is a great many things. Intuitive is not one of them. The description of Might has nothing to do with it's actual application. You need Might to lift people up. You need Might to push boulders out of the way. You need Might to break down walls. You need Might to threaten people with physical violence. Might is Strength. There is good argument that Might also has a strong spiritual component to it, and I can see the argument of a healthy mind in a healthy body, and so on; maintaining your physical fitness helps you focus your force of soul and will, and so on. But anyone that says that Might has nothing to do with physical attributes at all will be shot down during the first hour of play, and then blasted with flak cannons for the remainder of the game. The issue of the non-intuitive, lopsided Attributes and their bonuses is really not so much about High-Intellect Barbarians or Muscle-Wizards being inherently wrong. It really isn't. The problem is that, because the lopsided Attributes are as they are, the min/max is incredibly apparent. If Resolve served a purpose for Wizards (say, +AoE) and the whole set of bonuses were actually balanced, it wouldn't be so apparent that hey, a Barbarian will do really, really, really great with Intellect. Want to do a "classical" wizard? Dump Might, go for Mid-Dexterity, High-Intellect, High-Resolve. But right now, that'd be utter gimp. If things were remotely balanced. Want to go for a "classical" barbarian? High-Might, High-Constitutiton, Mid-Resolve or Dexterity, Low-Intellect or Dexterity. If things were remotely balanced. The attribute bonuses in the game are terrible. And Obsidian knows that they are terrible, because they keep moving the CNPC stats away from their roleplaying basis in order to make the CNPC:s better. In 1.03, almost all the CNPC:s were changed from "bad" spreads to "less bad" spreads, even when it compromised who those characters are. Why? Because the Attributes are lopsided and favours min/maxing. In 1.05, Grieving Mother, a perceptive but rather simple-minded Cipher, is going to get her Intellect switched for her Perception. That's 12 Intellect switched with 17 Perception. Why? Because Perception doesn't mean anything to her, mechanically, and is a useless Attribute for the overwhelmingly vast majority of Ciphers (Tanky cipher? Just no.). Does it make sense for Grieving Mother to have a Perception of 12 and an Intellect of 17? Lolno. But they know that 12 Intellect and 17 Perception is a ****ty setup for her, so knowing that the Attributes are crazy lopsided, they prefer to compromise mechanical/roleplay congruity than to actually fix them.

It's really one thing. The issue comes down to the fact that when one character is discovered, everyone gets forced out of Stealth. The fact that everyone stealths at the same time, I don't think anyone actually cares about, but you can't have one without the other - if you were not forced out of Stealth when combat starts, but only the one that was discovered, you wouldn't have party Stealth anymore, you'd have individual Stealth. Part of the reason for that is probably that Stealth is only really used for stealing and, strangely, detection (which, even stranger, is based on Mechanics). Even if you wanted to do more Stealthing, you probably wouldn't, because it's terrible, and if you just don't like that style of play, it doesn't really concern you. But for those that enjoy the tactical applications of Stealth, the way it works in PoE is nothing short of a travesty. The funny thing is that a lot of people (me included) still Stealth everywhere, because you need to Stealth to detect secrets, but never use it for the things you'd think Stealth would be used for.

I saw no such choice and yes. It's really not that odd, choosing to only pray to one deity. Imagine if you are a Priest of Berath (the only Priest Deity you can actually pray to, which is all kinds of ****ing weird); would you offer prayer to the other gods, or would you pick Berath and stick to it? It is, but so is The Old Queen and the New King with Galawain. The quests seem to have "secondary quest-givers" specifically to allow you to do the quests without involving the deities, at least for the quests relating to Galawain and Hylea - I haven't found a way to initiate Rymrgand's or Berath's without prayer - but only the latter forces you to commune with the concerned deity. The Old Queen and the New King concludes when you finish the quest, with a suggestion that you go to the temple and pray to Galawain. The Next Above the Clouds does not conclude when you finish the quest, with the suggestion that you go to the temple and pray to Hylea being forced on you. Both quests should follow the logic of the former.

Using Obsidian logic explanation for Ruffian and Eder would be : We didnt want eder to be too good or stronger than random Fighter you made on your first playtrough so we put useless talent on him to keep "balance" intact What are you talking about? First of all, if you pick up Edér at the "right" level (or "wrong", depending on how you want to cut it), Edér starts with both Weapon Focus Ruffian and Rapid Recovery, despite only having enough levels for either one, and second, Weapon Focus Ruffian is one of the best Weapon Focus Groups there are. Sabres are easily one of the best medium weapons, Stilettos are easily one of the best small weapons, and you get two different firearms, Pistols and Blunderbi. The only thing that speaks against Edér is that his stats are split in twain between Might and Constitution, but it doesn't really stop him. I know they changed his Attributes around in 1.03, when they decided that there is no overlap between Attributes and roleplay anyway, which arguably nerfed him a little (Res/Per instead of Int; I'm surprised they aren't switching his Might and his Int, similar to how they're switching Grieving Mother's Per and Int in 1.05) but he's easily nearly as good as anything the player puts out (but nothing overshadows the main character, what with unique talents and such).

In terms of min/max, Intellect is a complete no-brained for Barbarians (just like for most other classes, especially all spellcasters). Like Atchod said, you max it. As far as I know though, reach weapons do not affect the range of Carnage. I may be wrong, though, and I'm sure someone will point it out if I am. But intellectual barbarians is as much of a staple in PoE as the paladins lacking in resolve and the muscle-wizards.

I haven't given it much thought, because I try to beeline for CNPC:s so I don't have to deal with the enormous experience bonus you get for smaller parties, but Edér stands out as gaining something that I think is downright weird. Weapon Focus (Ruffian). He's a peasant that was a soldier in a war - why he gets Weapon Focus (Ruffian) I'll never know - he should've gotten Weapon Focus Peasant or Soldier, imo. But I don't think that Obsidian attaches any value to the mechanical representation of characters at all, so it was probably entirely a build decision. Weapon Focus (Ruffian) is easily one of the best ones (Sabre, Stiletto, Blunderbuss and Pistol? Yes please.). This is further supported by the changes they made to Attributes first in 1.03 and then now in 1.05. The builds and attributes Obsidian has given them has absolutely zero to do with the characters themselves, sadly.

If there is a back line, I've found that I never need to sneak around to get to it. I just attack head on with my tank (4-5 ranks of Stealth) and keep whomever is going to strike at the back line to the side, and once combat starts, just circle up and attack them.

I wonder just how hairy a hearth orlan really is.

Departments. Anyway, there's actually a lot of different versions of each weapon. Itemization may be an issue in PoE, but when it comes to the variety that is there, it's fairly even-handed. I can't tell you what you've missed, because I'm not sure what you've done and what you haven't done, or what you've found, but aside from Swords and maybe a few other weapons, I've seen about the same amount of each type. I'd like to see more weapon types in the game too, like Waraxes and Mauls, but they're not even in the game, and I already think that there's issue with how a lot of weapons feel (or are) same-y (point-in-case). But for the weapons that are in the game, there's a fair amount of each, with very few exceptions, I'd say (Hatchets, Daggers, Swords are things I haven't found many of).

Less than 10 words in, first point out of three, and you've already failed basic reading comprehension. There is no price for participation, you know.

Yeah, it's.. a bit annoying that a lot of portraits are essentially impossible to emulate (and vice-versa). I made an Orlan from The White That Wends, with this very portrait, only to discover that nope, you can't actually have a white-furred Orlan. The same goes with a lot of other things; it's hard to get a good blonde or a good black (as opposed to golden and dark brown), the pale elves either get blueish or blonde hair, and a female heart orlan portrait has black hair, but again, there's actually no black hair. Some Orlan portraits even have eye colours that orlans can't even choose. Also, why the hell do several CNPC:s have unique colour set in their inventory that you cannot reset? Change colour because you want to set the colour of your cape and it's gone forever. But yeah, I can't actually help you with that, but this was a good of a place as any to bring this up.

There has been hints that they will attempt to fix it at some point, but that they couldn't do it before release, due to how states work in Unity. Basically, Non-Combat is one State, Combat is one State, and Stealth/Scouting is another.

You spend a long time at level 12, though, far longer than any other single level, and level 12 is used as the "end result"; the differences do not scale linearly, but all the lower levels would do would be to lower the gap on average.

Because backstab has range of 2 m, so you might as well use mele weapons. it also works only from stelth or invisibility. Since invisibility ability Shadowing Beyond is only 2 per encounter, and you can only stealth outside of combat you might as well 1. open with backstab from stealth 2. Shadowing Beyond letting your tank pick up engagement 3. backstab from invisibilty after all are engaged 4 repeat Shadowing Beyond and backstab for the 3rd time edit: this is theorycrafting, since my rogue was ranged and i didnt take backstab It is theorycrafting, because I'd like to see you pull that off consistently when taking enemy movement/your own movement, Engagement (which you'll near-instantly be in if you Engage them in melee) and recovery speed (the time it takes between your backstab and the time you can use Shadowing Beyond) into account. I *can* see it being useful in situations where you can target an opponent inside the encounter but far away from other opponents, and you can be sure to kill them instantly - and let's be fair, Backstabs are quite powerful, so you will probably instantly kill a lot of opponents, especially when you become overleveled (which is easy). Also, Shadowing Beyond is 2 per rest. But at that point, you still have to ask yourself.. why didn't I just shoot them in the head from a 2m range with a Pistol? No risk of engagement, a 2m head-start to run away, and high-damage impact, before switching over to your regular melee weapons. For as long as Stealth is non-combat only and party-wide, I would never play a melee rogue taking Backstab and focusing on Stealth. However, taking Ruffian and Backstab could work out, because you shoot with the pistol and then switch to your sabre(s). But I haven't tried that.

Skipping reload is different than skipping recovery time. Skipping reload is a valid tactic. Skipping recovery time is probably a bug.

You can. And it's actually really good for some builds. My rapier duelist is getting some really good mileage out of it.

Useful for positioning. Having it on your tank is really, really good. No-one else really needs it. Aside from Deflection and Movement Speed, Stealth is one of the best things a tank can have. Well, it is if you want to use the Backstab ability. That requires you to be hiding or invisible. Sneak Attack, on the other hand, just requires the target to be flanked or have any one of a handful of status effects affecting it. Why would you be backstabbing with melee weapons, though? If you initiate with your rogue, you're an idiot, and you deserve to have your leather-clad ass tied up in Engagement and die. And if you're ranged, you don't need nearly as much Stealth. Edit: It should be said, though, that if someone does want to backstab in melee, you'll probably need a lot of Stealth at higher levels.

Bull. It's not an issue of a high or low level cap, it's an issue of pacing, and has nothing to do with "indoctrination". Content is meant to be played, to draw a hard line between "completionists" and "casuals" is ridiculous, and creates the false dichotomy of two groups for mental midgets to lump everyone together into and label. The real world with real people doesn't work that way. A lot of IE veterans even prefer lower-level play, and consider IWD2 and ToB to practically make the system fall apart. There is currently no problem with finishing the game with only doing a bit of the sidequests and primarily the main quest, and you should end up at level 12 by the end anyway, even though level 9 would do, whereas if you do most of the quests, you end up level 12 long before Twin Elms (assuming some missed quests/deliberate avoidance and about ~7 levels of Od Nua). The pacing is shot to hell. There's some really easy ways to solve it, though, but so far they haven't shown any interest in doing so (much like fixing the Attribute bonuses, which they also know are lopsided). "Personal best" as in "highest level fastest"? Well it certainly would've improved the game, that's for sure. That bestiary experience and the trap/lockpicking experience actually adds up to a lot. There's probably hundreds of traps in the game and several thousands worth of experience from the bestiary. The worst thing is really that I get the feeling that they never understood the arguments for Goal-Oriented Experience vs. Murderhobo-Oriented Experience, because having it like it is completely undermines it. There is no "middle ground", because ultimately it's not about how much experience you dole out, but that you do it at a remotely meaningful level at all.

This is a pretty considerable oversight. The quest "The Nest Above the Clouds", after the sky dragon has been killed, you return to the priests of Hylea with the news. At this point, they - like several others, such as the quest "The Old Queen and the New King"; although referring to Galawain - suggest you go to Teir Evron and speak to Hylea. The problem being that the quest doesn't actually finish until you do, completely ignoring the fact that someone might not desire to pray to Hylea - I certainly don't, nor am I interested in gaining her blessing, just as I am not interested in gaining the blessings of Galawain. The Nest Above the Clouds should conclude with the priests and the suggestion to go to Teir Evron, just like The Old Queen and the New King; it should not force you to do so just to get rid of the quest in your log. This is actually the first time in the entire game where I'm forced to do something that goes completely against my character just in order to get rid of a quest.

What ideas would that be?

Alright, so I just ran into this little gem. I was resolving the last dialogue with Grieving Mother after just having cleared the Northweald and passed/about to pass into the Temple of Hylea. I then decided to talk to Durance as well, and saw that he had a new dialogue option.. which makes no sense. There has not been any major reveals about Woedica yet, or at least not in the vein of which the dialogue goes, rife with spoilers and so on. At first it looks like this: But if I do not choose it the first time when offered, it stops showing up, and I must choose "I had questions I wanted to ask you", resulting in: I'm not sure exactly what causes this, but I suspect it is either triggered by completing one of the deity-centric quests in Council of Stars, or by setting foot on the Burial Isle. I did go there at one point, but only to unlock it, and did not explore it. Either way, it's a pretty serious issue. Now I'm not sure if I'm waiting for a specific trigger or something, or what it is.

I'm convinced that I saw it damage opponents just yesterday. Not sure if it was noted in the combat log, because the combat log is terrible. Edit: I also just did a test to see if it maybe just affected allies OR enemies, but it seems to be affecting both correctly.