Luckmann

Also, it doesn't really matter anyway. If there is any difference - and I don't think there really is - it's extremely small. Either way, you end up just short of level 11 at the end of Act 2, and max out at level 12 long before the endgame. So the possibility of minute differences in experience between the quests is really nothing to worry about.

37 people are objectively wrong.

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.

Yes of course, I understand that, but here, the meta ("endgame choices") really clashes with the roleplay (the representation of the gods from an in-universe point of view). If it's really just about restricting choices to something reasonable (in this case 4), it could've been done much better, such as still giving each god an altar, only that - like the altar of Wael and Woedica - the gods do not respond when you pray. And the fact that the prayer to Eothas is just omitted is nothing short of unforgivable. Like I said, you can't even accidentally pray to Eothas by mistake. Skaen gets no altar, yet you can accidentally pray to him at another altar. Yes of course. But that does in no way explain why Eothas do not have an altar, nor why you can't pray to him. He's not there, or if he is there, he's not going to show in the starlit sky, nor respond to prayers. We know that due to implied implications in the game. But the altar should still be there, and you should still be able to pray to him. And even so, it doesn't explain the absence of Abydon, Skaen, Ondra and Magran. Those you can even pray to - although by the wrong altar - and they are still shown in the starlit sky (which I do not think Eothas would, whether by choice or due to death). They just don't have any altars. In an ancient, ancient temple dedicated to all the gods.

Spoilers, obviously. As part of the main quest, you eventually end up with the quest Council of Stars, during which you're asked to pray to a deity of your choosing. Except not really. You're limited to a number of deities, that is, to the ones that are present at the temple. Which is.. odd, considering that the temple is really, really, really, really, really old. Blue = Altar of which deity. Red = Corresponding symbol. Green = Missing altars. Notably absent is Eothas, who does not get a symbol nor an altar. And it's extremely odd. Even if you can't pray to all the gods for whatever reason - they may be silent, they may be dead, they may ignore you - the altars should've still been there. Notably *present* is both Wael and Woedica, who you cannot contact through prayer here, so why wasn't Abydon, Magran, Skaen, Ondra and Eothas given the same treatment? If anything, by the background mythos, Woedica has been "dead" or "possibly dead" for far longer than Eothas. I think this is all a pretty serious discrepancy and I can't really wrap my head around why they didn't just include all the deities. Eothas missing from the sky and his altar silent, but still there, and if you were a Priest of Eothas, you could try to pray anyway - and fail. Magran giving you the silent treatment, especially if you have Durance in your party. Abydon refusing to get involved. Skaen as silent as Wael and Woedica, obviously. Ondra.. no clue, but whatever. I realize that there's such a thing as constraints and they may have felt a need to restrict the number of available quests, but at that point, it would've been far preferable if the alters were there but just not communicative. What's even odder is that when you do pray, you can utter prayers - some obvious incorrect - to ten different gods. Ten. Not eleven. These are: And again Eothas is ignored. Not from an objective observer/meta perspective, but from an in-character perspective. You can't even utter the wrong prayer to the wrong god and accidentally pray to Eothas by mistake. That is beyond stupid. The game almost makes it a point to make it ambiguous whether Eothas is truly dead or not, and whether Waidwen was truly Eothas or not, but at the same time, virtually jumps through hoops to drive home the meta that, yeah, he is, and he was, by restriction options related to him. Also, this might've been the best opportunity to use scripted interactions that never was. Instead there's a regular dialogue screen and a repeating light show. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed. What gives?

What about an enemy immune to all physical damage? I'm fine with that. And vice versa.

I'm sure that the Mafia says the same thing, but it's still just a rationalization for evil criminal behavior. Define evil. Was Capone evil?

"Immunity to +X Weapons" were the dumbest ****, and I'm saying this as someone that adamantly support the idea of hard counters, immunities and strong resistances. It's never even established what it really means, it's just A-Wizard-Did-It-Plus-Two. Immunities should make sense, not be completely arbitrary. And "A vampire can't be harmed by anything but +2 weapons" is completely arbitrary. You can tell me "Oh, Vampires are immune to most metals and is nearly immune to iron or steel, but can be hurt by cold iron", I'm like, alright, I can live with that. Or if you tell me fire elementals can't be hurt with fire, well, yeah, duh. I'd even be fine with fire-based things sometimes being resistant to cold or frost, simply because their own heat counteracts it. That's fine. But "+2"? No. **** that ****. I'd like to add party-based. A single-player party-based RPG where most content is optional and threats can be signposted in the narrative, and most problems solved in more ways than one. People worry that they need an exact counter to something unexpected, but not only is it almost never unexpected, but part of the gameplay should be to prepare yourself for such things, and no-one has ever asked for something that can only be countered in one single very specific way. And it's party-based; you're supposed to have a group of people that work together and shine at different points. Oh lawd, a magic-immune enemy? Look at the punchers doing what they do best! Oh, no, an enemy that is easiest dispatched with frost? Pew pew pew, meta-magic-frost-magic-missiles! Pew pew, everyone cheers for the wizard, woooo.

Like LadyCrimson said, Mechanics is the skill for finding secrets and traps, as well as disarming and setting traps. Perception does nothing for this, nor does any other skill.

Why would Passionate be opposed by Rational, and not Stoic? And why would Clever be opposed to either? I'm sorry, but the dichotomy theory doesn't match up, just because there's a certain parity to the system inherent in these various dispositions, such as honesty and deceptiveness. Even benevolence and cruelty doesn't need to be opposed; I can be benevolent towards peasants, just to be incredibly cruel towards their oppressors. Also, if you include the Favoured/Disfavoured Dispositions lists of Priests and Paladins both, you'll see that the theory holds very little merit, nevermind that even if it would've been true, hard dichotomy is ****ing boring. And if you want to make interesting characters and organizations, you should definitely shy away from doing things like super-good vs. super-evil or "always truthful, never deceptive". In fact, only three out of 10 completely matches up to this hard dichotomy you propose, and this is in a system with 10 different Dispositions, and each Deity or Order has to include 4 different dispositions. And lastly, Aggressive/Diplomatic still makes perfect sense as the Order's favoured Dispositions based on what we know. They're different functions at different times, but they're both equally part of the order. Just because an order favours Aggressive doesn't make them raving lunatics that tries to attack you at every turn, nor does the Diplomacy diposition turn you into a talky seneschal.

Dump Con, Per, Res. Pump Int, Mig, Dex. In that order. The attribute bonuses in PoE really are that banal.

Maybe, but if this happens (Im not worried, it won´t) you´re effectively punishing players who mostly play these kind of games for the min/max combat tactical experience such as myself. For my first playthrough, I immerse myself in the world. But for any subsequent playthrough, I do as few quests as possible, and play the game for the combat itself and continous progression through the main quest line. Not getting any EXP from the beastiary (which is already too low IMO, and too much from quests) would feel really bad. It's a roleplaying game, not a combat sim. If you're playing PoE for the combat, my only question would be why.

How? I was level 10, halfway to level 11, and I missed at least two quests. Well, the original pitch (iirc) was that players would not hit max level unless they did a lot of side content. Otherwise, they would be around level 9/10 if they stuck to the main patch which is why the end game encounters seem balanced for a party of that level. Instead, we get lop-sided xp gain that completely contradicts the intended design goals. This. It's annoying as hell that they deviated so extremely from the stated design, especially when the whole thing is really easy to fix.

You just can't stop yourself, huh? If only Freud were alive today. So we could sue him for malpractice? Not all jews are rich, you know.

I'm not convinced even that is enough. I think a part of the body must pass over the centre of the trap's circle. I've seen enemies that are obviously within the red circle but have had it not trigger. Traps are something you use strategically. They're useful quite often if you make them a part of your strategy. You said lower level traps are powerful at lower levels. Sounds useful to me. You want them to be useful at higher levels? Why? Or are you saying encounters are too easy so you don't have to place traps? I agree the game is too easy. That's not a factor of the trap design, though. I don't, I was just making an observation. It is easy to think of traps as just traps, and since they're very rarely necessary, you end up hoarding them. I was just saying that you should use the lower-level traps at lower levels. In fact, as you disarm traps, it may not be a bad policy in general to use them in the same dungeon. Lower-level traps quickly becomes completely useless, and it's hard to keep track of what's what. And then at the end, only the truly powerful traps are really useful, such as the very rare ones that Petrify. I like traps, I just wish they worked better. They're too unreliable and the amount you can place should increase by Mechanics.

Don't really see the point. It's certainly not easy to get unless you gear and build your team for it and rush there, and even then, you need to know that you can find it there. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Tidefall is one of the few appropriately placed things.

D

Copper has a couple of standout properties: conductivity, resistance to corrosion, durability, and being biostatic (bacteria and such don't grow on copper). It also shows up in basically all living organisms. But I'd put my bets on the suggestion that Engwithan soul machines either use or generate electricity. I'm willing to bet that electricity goes somewhere into the process to some degree, but it could also just be a by-product, because I haven't actually seen any real electricity, just things that implies that it's there - and where would it be generated from? I have seen no batteries or generators. I think that the copper is there for all of it's standout properties. To conduct souls or divert electric energy, the longevity due to it's resistance to corrosion, and if adra is coral-like, it won't interfere with the copper or grow over it. I bet the engwithans coated everything adra with a varnish of copper dust.

Yes. Dear god, yes. Yes for more reasons than I can possibly explain to you. Christ, how can you even ask this question? If anything, the blanket Per-Encounter bumps for Spellcasters at level 9 and 11 should be dropped completely.

Another one, Durance, Caed Nua. When you reach Caed Nua, Durance says a line that ends with "... it reminds me of Woedica". But in text, it only says "... it reminds of Woedica".

Traps *can* be useful, but mostly they're not. There are some really strong ones, like the ones that Petrify. At lower levels, they can be very powerful, but lower-level traps are quickly outpaced by the increase in difficulty, and once you are overleveled for the content you're facing (~Act 2), traps simply aren't worth placing, because most encounters won't need them at all. I'm not convinced even that is enough. I think a part of the body must pass over the centre of the trap's circle. I've seen enemies that are obviously within the red circle but have had it not trigger.

Yeah, the trap trigger does not match the graphical representation. I think they actually have to touch the centre pixel of the circle or something.

If you told him to sod off in dialogue, I think he's gone-gone.

I don't know. I was a bit split with my Bleak Walker paladin, but I didn't really have a choice - I was locked out of the Doemenels, so I could only choose The Dozen or The Knights of the Crucible. But my point being that Bleak Walkers, while reduced to blackguards in practice in PoE (Hurrrrr Aggressive/Cruel, Durrrrr Diplomacy/Benevolent), are still supposed to be a Paladin Order that believes in order and discipline, and just seeks to end conflicts as fast and resolute as possible. The Doemenels are scheming bastards, when push comes to shove, and I realize it's up to individual characters as to what they do, but I'd say that the Bleak Walkers are definitely predisposed towards the Knights of the Crucible, at least to a degree.

I can't think of a better reason to stop playing. It is possible to get locked out of picking a faction without taking the quest from them. Also, you receive the quest - locking you out of other factions - before you know what the quest even is, and once done, there's nothing to do. The problem as I saw it was always that you get locked out when accepting the quest, not when carrying it out, which is.. counter-intuitive. I also think that it should be possible to flat-out refuse to pick a faction, similar to what happens if you kill all the faction leaders. Except not killing the faction leaders.