Luckmann

When it happens, I deal with it by doing everything I can to prevent the others in my group from shooting Aloth in the head. The fact that dominated characters are automatically attacked by non-dominated allies is seriously much worse than anything I've actually had to deal with from the dominated character itself.

No, you're still not getting it. It's not about rewards or profitability, or that Raedric doesn't reward you - he does, although I suspect you can get that Greatsword by just stabbing him in the face anyway. It's that the option is uninspiring and feels unfinished. You're locked out of content, in that you can't talk to several NPC:s in Raedric's Hold in a meaningful way. It has nothing to do with the narrative aspect of siding with Raedric. The areas are open. Raedric doesn't need to open them for you, nor does he restrict your access to them. But when you go there, the areas are devoid of meaningful content; you cannot talk to either Osrya or Nedmar, and Giacco is suddenly hostile for no sensible reason, even when you let him out. The option to side with Raedric seems to be an unfinished last-minute-job and the default assumption was obviously that you were going to oppose him, whether that makes sense to you or not.

That was the same representative that made me want to be able to switch allegiance during the hearing, too.

Crazy **** lord turns out to be an **** and screws you over? Shock! Horror! Have a very nice day. -fgalkin But that's.. what? No. How the hell did you come to that conclusion based on what I said? It's not Raedric that screws you over, it's how the quest functions.

What are the odds that Sagani is standing in that very crossing at that exact time, and what are the odds that Durance would be sent in a vision to find you? Odds do not apply to the rule of cool.

Damn, that would've been interesting.

You sure told me.

I disagree with the note on camping supplies, because they serve a very important function. I'd even go so far as to suggest that resting should be further restricted to safe areas, or otherwise carry a considerable chance of being attacked during sleep (guaranteed in dungeons, possible in the wilderness, and woken up by guards in cities). The rest I can actually agree with, but mostly because they're very meh in PoE. I liked Amaranthine Keep in Dragon Age: Origins and I liked Crossroad Keep in NWN2. But Caed Nua is.. eh. And the Enchanting system is lackluster and meh, and I only feel like it devalues itemization and makes everything just feel like different kinds of enchantments. You didn't find the Holy Avenger, you found a Greatsword with enchantments X, Y and Superb. The Crafting is completely useless, I haven't used it once, and I never saw the use. I may grow to use it a bit, but there's really not that much point, unless you're using scrolls like mad - but you don't have to, so why would you? This is of course exacerbated by the fact that the ones to most likely invest in Lore, already have their own spells anyway, and even get to cast them Per-Encounter in mid-game. Custom-made companions is something Igenerally agree with you on, but mostly because it serves as a cop-out to not add more CNPC:s ("hurr, you can make your own if it's not enough durrr"). At the end of the day, I see why it's there and I'm fine with it. Not really using it myself, but some people really like that aspect and it really doesn't hurt the gameplay in a meaningful capacity. The most important point that you make is really the "Take everything"-issue. It really is an issue with some fairly big consequences, and the Unlimited Stash, the Infinigold merchants and the endless encumbrance all by themselves may seem like a good idea, but in practice it's worked out less than stellar. The Stash should've just been a limited-size shared party inventory, and everyone contributed to an encumbrance limit. Or something along those lines.

A bit too late now, but I consider the extra spell uses completely useless. Arcane Veil is also a pretty wasted talent, but at least Grimoire Slam has a use. My preferred Aloth tactic is to set him up with all the Blast/Implement-improving Talents. Wizards potentially spend quite some time just throwing their wand around and slapping it against things and people, and being able to gratuitously blast someone in the face is an enjoyable experience. Please, regale us with your experiences on how useful these abilities are in your experience.

They could've been done better, they don't illicit many.. feels. But the "best" one? Depends entirely on character. I like that while they divided them up too sharply for the hearing (hurr, pro con neutral, woo) they actually have a lot poured into them as distinct factions. The Dozen are criminals but not really, the Doemenels are criminals but reasonable, and the Crucible Knights are policemen but assho.. wait, no, that's just policemen, nevermind. Anyway, an objective "best"? I would say Crucible Knights or Doemenels. The Dozen, while probably the most likely for me to join myself (me, as a person), are anything but a stable influence. But it comes down to your character.

Can confirm. I agree with AndreaColombo, as well. If this was done intelligently, it would be fine, but it tends to just be stupid. Overall, a lot of enemies could stand to have commands to change weapons based on range vs. melee, if only there was a penalty to actually shooting in melee, at least for bows and when reloading.

The experience doleout in the game is pretty broken. It is known. Probably. If you haven't got 50k by the end of Act 2, you're doing something wrong.

I think we can and should make it the default. Well, not a blanket 25% increase, of course, but the buffing of experience tables and such as I proposed. Ending the game at level 9 or 10 is entirely possible. You don't *have* to max out hours upon hours before the endgame, or even at all. I think that if you want to reach the level cap, you should have to work for it, and do most of the content in the game. The cap is supposed to be a high-end cap in terms of overall gameplay, I think - any cap like that should be. You're not forced to reach the cap, and you're not forced to be at maximum level when the game ends. I think changing it would improve pacing tremendously, *especially* for those that aren't utter completionists.

Adding accuracy back into the system is a mistake. As I've said more than few times, it's too important for any build you can think of. It immediately becomes a must have stat, regardless of what your build is. And I continue to disagree. Accuracy is valuable, and I'd like to see some graphs on exactly how much Accuracy is worth in relation to, for example, Might. Is +1 Accuracy worth more or less than +3% to Dmg and Healing? How is it quantifiable compared to +AoE% (which I want on Resolve) and +Duration% (which I want to keep on Intellect)? And is the difference enough to matter in a meaningful way? I'm still not convinced. That's fair, but I think you and I will probably never be able to see eye to eye on this. I don't know. I think we just need to crunch some numbers. Accuracy is valuable, but it's not the end-all be-all. Going by game logic in relation to damage alone, Savage Attack adds *1.20 Dmg at the cost of 5 Accuracy. Worth it? Arguably. This. A good system is one that allows you to mix and match at will, yet get a viable and interesting character. The mechanical value lies in everything being about as good, and the roleplay value lies in how you decide to play. Practically the opposite of how it is today. You want to tank? You *will* be a charming understudy with the eyes of a falcon. You're a caster that wants to do damage? You *will* be a meathead with a bachelor's degree in advanced astrophysics.

The trap triggers are terrible, and often fail to go off unless the opponent walks right on top of them, so you have to be meticulous with placement, which is hard. Also, use those lower-level traps that you find, on lower levels. On higher levels, they're pretty much useless. I've started to place traps with Durance just to get rid of them. But the fact that you can't use Seals at the same time and you're limited to 1 trap per person (and how many people have multiple machinists in the party?) makes traps very meh. They should: Fix trap triggers, because they're terrible and often fail to go off unless stepped right upon. Allow you to place 1 trap per 4 points of Mechanics (1 at 0, 2 at 4, 3 at 8, 4 at 12). Fix Seals. Seals should not count as Traps and not benefit from Mechanics. De-value Mechanics by moving Detection to Stealth and allow the detection of secrets (but not Traps) outside of Scout Mode.

They're coral? Is this confirmed anywhere? It's kind of a cool notion, but I don't remember anything about that. Now that you mention it, uhh... I'm not sure. I'm absolutely certain it was mentioned pre-release, though. I think it was Sawyer that described it as coral-like. If that's still true, it's not conveyed very well in the game that often (most of it just looks like green crystals) but sometimes when you see shaped Adra or pieces of adra (such as in the inventory) I still see the coral influence. Either way it's my story and I'm stickin' to it. Pfft. That's not even hard. We've been killing Earth for 400 years and not even breaking a sweat. It's just a slow-ass grind.

My only gripe with Durance, really. It makes no sense, either. Yes, he's a gruff survivor, but in battle-mode, you'd expect him to act more or less on instinct, being an old warrior, and actually display a lot of battlefield solidarity, even if he'd go back to his brooding I-hate-you-all and my-goddess-is-a-whore-that-abandoned-me afterwards. I'd simply expect him to act in his good interest. He complains when badly wounded, after all. Why does he expect others to help him with an attitude like that ? I could even understand he's happy when Eder dies (he calls him "Eothasian"). But he's going to be cut to pieces if he doesn't help others. He just sounds like a backstabber. Come on, at least pretend they're tools and meatshields. Otherwise, he doesn't sound like he has suicidal tendencies. So why ? Eder returns the favor by proposing that the dargul on the tower feeds on Durance, but that could easily be a joke. Edér and Durance doesn't seem to have near-enough banter, certainly not as much as you'd expect, given their opposites (and it's therefore extra funny that both are extremely popular characters). I noticed yesterday that when Durance goes down, Edér just says "...did it just get quiet here?" or something to that effect. It's hard to notice, because it's such a matter-of-fact way to pose the question. Like augh, finally, he shuts up. Sometimes I get the vibes that there was supposed to be a lot more banter from Durance. He doesn't come across as very preachy, especially not towards the other characters, yet they complain about it here and there. It would be amazing if he actually held sermons to them whenever possible. Probably because it just makes him seems so pathetic that no one had the heart to want him gone. I mean, the guy is so completely devoid of direction that he just latched onto the first person that seemed like they might have A Plan, even if it was to tangle with the very people he had wanted to meet. Aloth would never betray you, because that requires having some sort of actual will of your own. Damn. I wish that was conveyed slightly better or earlier, really. It wasn't all that clear to me until the bridge. When you put it that way, I feel feels for Aloth now. D:

http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm My bold. I am not sure about "entirely" debatable. It possibly is debatable given some grounds but I am afraid " Of course there are races, it's a biological reality. Humans are in no way exempt from evolutionary variance." will not cut it. AAA argument seems pretty solid. Humans are not dogs. I am not gonna repeat myself and everyone who reads this thread can judge for her/himself what sounds like racist remark and whatnot. What I learned here is that we have experts on African noses here which is great. Yes, they are, because they seek to reinterpret rather than refute. What they are essentially arguing is what constitutes race, and on that basis, argue that race is not real. The bolded text makes this clear, because race has never been about the percentage of difference between individuals, but about the commonality within population groups relative to other population groups. We share 50% of our DNA with bananas, and 96% of our DNA with chimpanzees. Boiling it down to semantics is meaningless if you don't even understand the terms being used. Whether you choose to call it race, subrace, ethnicity or population group is ultimately immaterial, what we're talking about is meaningful genetic differences between human groups and subgroups. This difference could be in anything from genetic resistances to disease (such as Malaria), hormone production, relative intelligence, to physiology (skin colour, eye shape, etc). It is possible to discuss whether these things are meaningful or not, but to not discuss it and to deny that they are real is nothing short of foolish and ignorant; worse than ignorant, wilfully ignorant.

Yes.

Well it's a bit late now, after everything has already been spoiled, but if there's a function like this, which really should've been there on release, I hope that it'll also feature the option to turn off pre-existing map-markers in the options. Knowing the name of things before you even go there is ridiculous, as is having a big marker saying "Aloth here!" the second you enter Gilded Vale.

Edit: Nevermind. I misunderstood the topic. Derp.

...oh god.

Adding accuracy back into the system is a mistake. As I've said more than few times, it's too important for any build you can think of. It immediately becomes a must have stat, regardless of what your build is. And I continue to disagree. Accuracy is valuable, and I'd like to see some graphs on exactly how much Accuracy is worth in relation to, for example, Might. Is +1 Accuracy worth more or less than +3% to Dmg and Healing? How is it quantifiable compared to +AoE% (which I want on Resolve) and +Duration% (which I want to keep on Intellect)? And is the difference enough to matter in a meaningful way? I'm still not convinced.

This. The reward for filling out the bestiary is that the bestiary is filled out. It's a flavourful asset that serves a purpose in itself. The experience is contrived and counter-intuitive to the idea of goal-oriented experience. I've said it before and I say it again - I do not think Obsidian ever understood the discussion on Murderhobo-Based Experience vs. Goal-Oriented Experience.

White women are by far the most universally liked of all the races, so you have your pick of the litter. I would also wager a guess that cRPGs are played most prominently by white people, so that would be a target audience as well. I know people like to pretend that we're all equal, but the simple fact is that there are differences between people of different descent, and negroid physical features in women are often considered less attractive than those of other races. So, if you're gonna try and make an attractive black woman character, the best selection of women to model your character on will likely be some of the famous "black" women (since fame is largely about appearance these days). But also more than likely is that you'll end up with a handful of mulatto women whose physical features are more white than black. It's not racist to acknowledge the differences between the human races and how these features affect the perceptions of people around them. There is no such a thing as biological race when it comes to humans, may wanna check on that with real anthropologist like AAA. However, can you support the claim about white women or is this something everyone knows? Not gonna even ask for evidence of your wager because .. lol You got lot to work with now anyway. Of course there are races, it's a biological reality. Humans are in no way exempt from evolutionary variance. Exactly what constitutes a race is entirely debatable, but to say that there is no such thing when it comes to humans is childish and ignorant. The most commonly accepted term is "population". As for the claim that white women is considered the most beautiful, there's been countless surveys and a few scientific studies. Nothing that Google can't find for you, honestly.