Luckmann

I find it absolutely delightful that you are so far the only one that has expressly been trying to create this binary X vs. Y framework that you attribute to people on both sides, in this thread. Also "this gender issue"? I don't think most people see a gender issue at all. If you speak of the limerick, it could've been about anything, and reasonable people would've ridiculed the lunatic twitterites regardless. And being reasonable and behaving reasonably does in no way mean that I'm under any obligation to clarify anything to you, on pain of contradiction, nor is doing so a prerequisite for being reasonable. I come from a country where people have tried to ban traditional icecreams for being racist. No matter the brand of lunacy, I think it'd illicit largely the same reaction. Most Scandinavians under 40 cannot string a proper sentence together to save their lives, let alone carry on a coherent conversation. They are plenty confident, for sure, but that confidence is also often undeserved. As for "both confirming and denying", that's really just another one of those... "what are you even on about?" kind of questions that I don't actually care about. But yes, I could probably avoid unintentionally antagonizing those with whom I disagree, but I cannot muster enough care to drag myself down to their level and risk having them beating me by their more extensive experience in regards to ineptitude. Because I honestly, really, on so, oh so many different levels actually could not give any less of a koala's scrotum as to whether some mental midget somewhere would actually consider my language antagonizing or not, unless there's an actual intent on my part. I'm not going to jump through hoops and guard my language based on whatever ridiculous offence others seek to infer based on whatever made-up issues they think they have, nor am I going to curtail the independence of thought and discourse as to appropriate themes or topics because it might offend. So could I? Perhaps. Will I? Of course not. I will apologize and explain intent if necessary, but I'm not going to drag around a failing society's worth of other people's insecurities and damaged goods simply because someone, somewhere could possibly arguably maybe find it offensive or annoying under certain circumstances. I know of people that can find even single words themselves offensive or annoying, and insist other people do not use it, because they are autistic and for whatever reason, they don't like that word. There's people that find offence in the most innocuous of things, and demand they be coddled and accommodated. I say no. I think it is very reasonable to interpret the world based on available evidence. It is completely reasonable to generalize. The fact that someone is judged harshly does not mean that they are judged unfairly. It is very much a case-to-case basis, but those cases to case paints an overall picture. I judged the cases by merit, and the overall issue based on the sum of the parts. It is not like I want to break into his home and murder his cat. The level of antagonism you attribute me is just ridiculous. I do not like the man, just like many others do not like the man, and that general dislike is based on our experiences of the man in question. There is really nothing more to it.

Find me a single person on these boards that fits that bill. One. I know of one, and only one, but with your extensive experience, you should have no problem making a list.

That's what sorting is for. And icons. And names. And the bonuses. The infinite stash was a bad idea from the start, but since it's existence is chiselled in stone, I'd be hard pressed to say anything but hallelujah to the sorting.

As much as I like the system itself... it's incredibly under-used. It's too easy to get good reputation, and almost impossible to get negative reputation with most factions unless you're a murderous lunatic, and either way it doesn't matter nearly enough. Only thing that has ever stood out was once or twice in Gilded Vale or something, I think.

the steampeasants get their patches first There's actually a word for that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_taster

That's not crafting. Nope, it would be something better. I still scratch my head sometimes wondering why "we" dropped the excellent BG2 approach for the utter crap that's called crafting in modern RPG's (PoE included). "Convenience".

Please don't. It adds very little to voice act a lot, and in PoE, it even detracts at many points. It also locks dialogue down once recorded, and makes it virtually impossible to revisit or revise certain areas of the game unless you happen to have that particular voice actors on hand, and the time and money to re-record it. If you want more immersion, give us more NPC portraits or something along those lines.

Don't be ridiculous, you know that's not going to happen. I gave a short and concise "in a nutshell" on the topic when asked, and have absolutely no inclination and certainly no obligation to supply you with an exhaustive explanation. If you want to lump us all together and believe that there is some kind of sinister plot going on where everyone belonging to whatever ideological outlook you attribute whoever you desire to vilify, the burden of proof is squarely on your shoulders. I don't think anyone that feels that they are on side A or B in this arbitrary line in the sand that you have drawn actually cares enough to defend themselves. You appear intent on politicizing and label people, grouping them into neat little boxes for you to bully or cherish, but the fact of the matter is that people can independently come to the same general conclusions on a topic without being cohorts or in cahoots. I sometimes find myself agreeing with Volourn, someone I have repeatedly and somewhat jokingly referred to as literally worse than Hitler. Me and Monte Carlo tend to agree on many things, and completely disagree on others. Stun has argued for murderhobo-based experience, something I hate with a vehemence. When Sensuki and I have talked about the Attribute Bonuses, we both agree that there's a problem, but disagree on the solution. Even PrimeJunta has mellowed in his reverence and blind faith in Sawyer as of late, and we often agree on certain topics, yet are in many ways polar opposites. Gkathellar is another SJW lunatic, but still tend to be completely reasonable in other regards, as have been seen across the boards. It is ridiculous to lump people together because they disagree with you, and assign them some uniform ideological label, people that more often than not have never even spoken directly to eachother (on these boards, there's about three people I've had direct contact with via PM on any meaningful level; Sensuki, Karkarov and Osvir). You want something from me, and I deny you that. It is not my job to educate you on matters that most thinking individuals would have no problem grasping. That's simply not true. A lot of people make no effort to that at all, and most do not even think of it on a concious level. There are some, of course, that do try to do that. Most of what you say is of course entirely true, however. But the option is that an individual makes the concious decision to be irrational or unreasonable, which would be.. farcical, really. So despite the potential pitfalls, I will continue to strive to be reasonable and judge most topics as fairly as I can, and take indications to the contrary under advisement. The fact that you say "four counts of overly emotional language" is funny, though. Which "overly emotional" language was that? Actually, nevermind, I'd rather you don't respond. Even the question might be misconstrued as me actually caring what you think of my language. I realize that my language may sometimes come across as haughty, but that's entirely unintentional, and I apologize. While I try to keep my language on a certain level, I tend to forget that it's not always appreciated, which is likely due to the fact that English isn't my native language. I've learned most of my English through games and books and the peripheral effects of cultural imperialism. See, you attribute hate where there is none. Disdain, perhaps, irreverence, maybe, but not hate. He tends to come up in topics and I question many of his decisions. In context, it is incredibly relevant who you direct blame at. I see no reason to direct blame towards the innocent. If I can pin something on a specific person, I greatly prefer to do that rather than to express dislike for people I don't even know (or know of). It's the very reason why we say "Sawyer and muh balance" when discussing Immunities, but say "What the hell are you thinking, Obsidian?" when discussing Attributes. There's a huge difference, and I think that it's quite reasonable. And when I see Sawyer doing something good, or something that's a result of his particular hangups or ideas, I'll praise him for that too, based on that merit.

If you award experience for killing, you are really contradicting yourself. You say that the goal should matter, however you got there. Then why should murderhobos be rewarded more? It is already enough of an issue that, with the infinite stash and the bodypart-based enchanting system, you have considerable incentive to just murder your way through everything. Screw appeasing the rabid murderhobos, there's no reason quest and encounter design, nor the XP curve, should be held hostage by that mechanic.

Now we're even getting colour-coded for stupid? What does that have to do with 'stupid'? It's just convenience. Usually I had to mouse-over 3+ pages of items in my stash while selling after a big dungeon/longer time, because I didn't want to sell any unique items. Now this whole process is sped up a lot. But how is Draining Whip now working as intended? Doesn't it apply on Blunderbuss projectiles anymore? Or what happened? Great overall fixes/balance changes "It's just convenience" has been the argument for many of the baby-steps to mediocrity. Dividing things into sharp lines of "uniques" and "magicals" and "rares" is the tradition of immersionless games centred on lootwhoring, not RPG:s. PoE already suffers from itemization issues of gear not feeling special, and now the "uniques" gets lumped into a shared subgroup, that is colour-coded for stupid. Do you like anything? Inventory is not immersion. It's inventory. If there are things that allow it to be done easier then that's a good thing. It allows players to get back to the immersion of the game. I like many things. The Cipher Focus nerf is great, although I would've expected 1/3, not 1/4; it looks a bit massive. And I also mentioned nameable saves, which is freaking amazing. I also like icecream and long walks on the beach. What's your point? And the inventory is as much part of the game as anything else. As I said, the game already suffers from a feeling of same-y-ness in terms of itemization. Do you also want a little level rank note on the corner of your items, so you know if the item is level 3 or 5? I mean, we wouldn't want you to have to make an educated choice, just follow the markers, line the numbered dots to victory. Is this a terrible crime, the end of everything? No, it's not. The other issues aren't either. But taken together, they just contribute to a more and more shallow game. Instead of fixing real things and adding meaningfully to the game, we get colour-coded-for-stupid magic items, attributes going straight against the narrative of established CNPC:s (instead of fixing the Attribute Bonuses that are causing the problem of "underpowered" characters) and free-assembly CNPC:s - because apparently the characters didn't matter anyway, so do what you want with them, who cares about what's thematic or narratively appropriate? It's reminiscent of gameplay evolution moving towards ARPG:s, not actual RPG:s. I used to say that PoE had a lot of potential, and that ultimately it could go either way, but that there was cause for cautious optimism. But now it seems that it's really just decided to slide into mediocrity and generalized mass appeal, and it's depressing to see, especially when the forum is still filled with quality criticism and solid, often easily implementable suggestions.

Feel free to, really. There won't be any surprises, though. In case you haven't noticed, Sawyer was project lead. He gets a lot of mention on the boards. So.. uhm.. yes? Mentioning someone when relevant doesn't imply a fixation. It may be interesting to you, but it is also true. It wasn't my intent to be exhaustive - hence the "in a nutshell". There's a lot to be said on the topic, but I favoured brevity and accuracy rather than fairness. In case you missed it, I didn't bring the subject up, nor am I the one to harp on it. There was a question. I answered it. Don't be ridiculous, Gkathellar. You know full well that I'm not a troll, unless you're another one of those idiots that believe that when someone doesn't agree with you, it's immediately a "troll". Coming from you, I'll take it as a badge of honour, though. And I would obviously not try to hide something that isn't true. It seems to really rub some people the wrong way when you're honest on a topic, I guess. We were all there, we saw what happened. It's ridiculous to try to rewrite what happened, or call others trolls when they go through the events in a nutshell. If anyone wants to whole thing, the threads are mostly still floating around, afaik. It should be fairly well-documented. I'm not sure I'd put it quite that harshly, but I find it deeply disconcerting that I'm generally agreeing with Volourn here. I think he also lost a lot of people by then suddenly jumping at the command of crazy people. You could probably write a thesis the size of a large dictionary based on the issues examined in detail on the forum, which has gone completely unheeded or simply ignored, while he is quick to lick the steamy bootheels of the most unreasonable clique of the psychologically deranged. So it's no surprise he's not the most popular man in the world. Come to think of it, I can't think of anyone that's lead such a successful high-profile game development project yet managed to maintain significant impopularity. Most others end up with veritable cults, like Avellone, Urquhart, Fargo or Cain. My impression is that it's mostly a very small, but quite vocal group of people who seem to share the same ideological outlook, who really have anything against Sawyer. You actually being one of the most vocal of the group. There were e.g. many charitable ways of construing the events that followed the backer incident, but your group were hell bent on one particular interpretaion, which you rehash in this thread. And that interpretation may certainly be the correct one, and it also be wrong. However, to make a strong judgment either way, is not at all indicative of reasonableness, which you seem to suggest. Quite the opposite. "your group". Yes that's cute an all. But it doesn't really support your viewpoint, or suggest why people should consider it "reasonable". What do you want? Do you want me to tell you you're wrong? You're wrong. Your most fundamental fail was pointed out; the suggestion that there's some kind of "group" that is mine or that I belong to, let alone one that share "an ideological outlook". It's absolutely ridiculous. If anything, there's a group of people adamantly defending the man based purely on his perceived politics; see no evil, head no evil. I don't care about that at all. I see s**tty people behaving s**tty or do s**tty things, I'm going to call them s**t. I've always made it a point to try to argue factually and objectively when it comes to the game in most regards, and the fact is that most of the really s**tty decisions relating to the game that has remained constant no matter how much exhaustive criticism has been levied against it, are Sawyer's pet hangups, such as hard counters, immunities and the war on movement. The game has other issues, many issues, that we've explored in detail, but that we can't pin on anyone in particular, so it escapes mention. If I knew who the hell was responsible for the current Attribute bonuses, I'd ask them what the hell that is about too, or the way they insist on putting band-aids on a bad system, ravaging CNPC Attributes to do it. It's incredibly disconcerting and disturbing to see it happen, instead of seeing the problems resolved. For some reason, the CNPC Attributes is malleable, no matter the nature of the CNPC:s as presented thematically in the narrative, but the Attribute bonuses themselves are chiseled in stone and untouchable, beyond reproach. All of my WTF:s and if I were a worse man I'd say that I want to see the man responsible dragged out into the street and.. well, whatever. Is it Sawyer? Now clue. Doesn't matter. Still an issue.

I think he also lost a lot of people by then suddenly jumping at the command of crazy people. You could probably write a thesis the size of a large dictionary based on the issues examined in detail on the forum, which has gone completely unheeded or simply ignored, while he is quick to lick the steamy bootheels of the most unreasonable clique of the psychologically deranged. So it's no surprise he's not the most popular man in the world. Come to think of it, I can't think of anyone that's lead such a successful high-profile game development project yet managed to maintain significant impopularity. Most others end up with veritable cults, like Avellone, Urquhart, Fargo or Cain. My impression is that it's mostly a very small, but quite vocal group of people who seem to share the same ideological outlook, who really have anything against Sawyer. You actually being one of the most vocal of the group. There were e.g. many charitable ways of construing the events that followed the backer incident, but your group were hell bent on one particular interpretaion, which you rehash in this thread. And that interpretation may certainly be the correct one, and it also be wrong. However, to make a strong judgment either way, is not at all indicative of reasonableness, which you seem to suggest. Quite the opposite. "your group".

I don't think anyone is fixated on Mr. Sawyer as the Ultimate Enemy Of All Things Breathing. He's got some unusual hangups and ideas that have affected the game on a fundamental level, despite the issues. It's not so much a fixation as it is criticism, and I think it rubs people the wrong way that he tends to either dismiss or "misunderstand" the criticism, if he doesn't avoid it completely. I think he also lost a lot of people by then suddenly jumping at the command of crazy people. You could probably write a thesis the size of a large dictionary based on the issues examined in detail on the forum, which has gone completely unheeded or simply ignored, while he is quick to lick the steamy bootheels of the most unreasonable clique of the psychologically deranged. So it's no surprise he's not the most popular man in the world. Come to think of it, I can't think of anyone that's lead such a successful high-profile game development project yet managed to maintain significant impopularity. Most others end up with veritable cults, like Avellone, Urquhart, Fargo or Cain.

The only things that really stands out is the nerf to Cipher focus, the fact that we can name saves, and the utterly crazy way they keep dealing with attributes for CNPC:s. The rest is pretty meh overall. I was expecting some more meaningful balance changes and usability tweaks such as finally differentiating between allies and neutral NPC:s, and toggleable and addable mapnotes. Now we're even getting colour-coded for stupid? What does that have to do with 'stupid'? It's just convenience. Usually I had to mouse-over 3+ pages of items in my stash while selling after a big dungeon/longer time, because I didn't want to sell any unique items. Now this whole process is sped up a lot. But how is Draining Whip now working as intended? Doesn't it apply on Blunderbuss projectiles anymore? Or what happened? Great overall fixes/balance changes "It's just convenience" has been the argument for many of the baby-steps to mediocrity. Dividing things into sharp lines of "uniques" and "magicals" and "rares" is the tradition of immersionless games centred on lootwhoring, not RPG:s. PoE already suffers from itemization issues of gear not feeling special, and now the "uniques" gets lumped into a shared subgroup, that is colour-coded for stupid.

Now we're even getting colour-coded for stupid? And it's sad to see Grieving Mother going from being the perceptive woman she is in the narrative, to being a super-intellectual whateverist, instead of seeing them fix the Attributes. Seriously, what the hell? First the nonsense changes in 1.03, and now this?

I think he feels safer on SomethingAwful. It's behind a paywall, he gets the kind of feedback he wants and doesn't have to deal with criticism or the drama of the real world. I bet it's cozy.

My interpretation was that the constellation, the "runes", were actual starlit constellations. So I can fully understand that Eothas wouldn't be there at all, whether Eothas is dead or just hiding, but I still think the shrine should've been there. ...inb4 Eothas has had his soul split into the twin deities of Mercy and Vengeance.

I have the same feeling as TheisEjsing, really. I think he had a talking-to regarding jumping when the twitter mob snaps at him, and is thus pouting in a corner somewhere on sheer principle, because his silence pretty sharply corresponds with the ridiculous SJW-induced debacle. Eh.. depends on what you mean by 100% playable. When someone says 100% playable, I'd say that it's actually, y'know, 100%. And it's not really 100% as long as it's still possible to break questlines and such. It a nutshell, some hambeast with an identity disorder (or merely yet another that insists on taking offence by proxy) threw a bitchfit on Twitter over a harmless limerick that was included in one of the more fitting backer memorials (which otherwise are more or less 800% condensed rubbish). Sawyer immediately threw himself on the case to appease the lunatics, and the memorial was changed in the very next patch without even being included in the patch notes. Caving to the pressure wasn't very popular amongst the more reasonable people, and the no-thing quickly became a thing-thing.

4. Armour. I see three people with heavy armour and shields, two in medium, and only Durance in robes. The game permits a certain leeway in terms of armour on the basis of thematics, but ultimately, anything that doesn't go into the armour dichotomy is objectively gimped. There's no reason for Durance to be in robes instead of clothes, and those 3 heavy armours and shields are severely gimping the damage output, and thus, ultimately, survivability. Aloth and Player-Cipher also do not need anything other than clothing. Also, Durance does really, really well with an Arquebus if you give him the Magran Talent and the Soldier Weapon Focus. Priests are really low-intensity spell-casters and prepping them for auto-attack is good.

They aren't absent, they either just won't talk to you or are in a group. The twins outside tell you straight up the gods aren't always "present" and even if they are don't always respond. I got the implication the altars were not dedicated to specific gods but were just there to commune with the god closest to that alter. That maybe you could come back next week and only berath and skaen might by hanging out and the others may be absent entirely. If that was so, then why have separate altars for each deity at all, instead of altars that you pray at, and pick your deity? And then why would you be punished if you said the "wrong" prayer at the "wrong" altar? And that still wouldn't explain why you can't say a prayer to Eothas, it would just make it even weirder. Even the specific altars to Woedica and Wael are explicitly non-communicative, you cannot even attempt to use them, and they are clearly intended as the altars of Woedica and Wael, respectively. The shrines are just shrines, they aren't dedicated to any particular gods. Recipients of prayers are defined by constellations closest to an altar. Dryads outside say that you should pray [at the altar] closest to those you want to be heard by. I guess designers created only 6 altars because the game had 6 groups of gods at this particular point in time. 5 useless altars (technically 7 with Woedica and Wael) with the extra space required to clearly show the PC that no god is near them was probably too much. Edit: Oh, right. What Karkarov said in that quote above. Edit2: But Woedica and Wael are present as constellations next to free altars, that's why altars are 'dedicated' to them (but not really). Again trying to second-guess designers I figure they wanted to have all the active gods present in the scene and that's all there is to it. Alright, so, you're responding to a post that responded to the arguments you yourself respond with? I'm not sure what to say without just copy-pasting the very post you responded to. That's not sure, but that is also completely, completely beside the point.

Except you don't.

They strangely work together, yeah. As the Talent works, it's actually a better Talent for a tank than a duelist, because their Accuracy will be pretty bad.

Yellow areas are not "bonus range", it is the area of a spell that does no Friendly Fire. Some spells do not have this at all. It is mildly inconsistent, though, because some spells are "Foe AoE", but still shows a yellow area, which isn't necessary. However, you're still correct. Here's a picture of Durance, Pillar of Faith, at Intellect 10 and Intellect 20:

One of the blood druids in Twin Elms has a really killer robe that looks awesome. That he doesn't drop.

My thought? "No".