Luckmann

It's fine to be ambiguous, but if you are, you shouldn't have other key characteristics of the plot hinge on the player understanding the specifics. Based on Elerond's excerpt, being Awakened isn't great, but it can be OK, and being a Watcher is sorta awesome, and being both is devastating. No-where in the game do I feel that this point is driven home or explained, yet it is kept as a key rationale for the main plot, and the player is expected to care. At the very start of the game, it's not very clear whether you're Awakened or a Watcher, or if they're just different words for the same thing, or if you awakened and became a Watcher. I think it's exactly like you say, though - they wanted to keep it a bit mysterious, a bit unclear, but I think that in doing so, they made a mistake in storytelling, and failed to convey the distinctions, which really affects the motivations of the player, since you can actually do a pretty good job of arguing in-character that what happened to Maerwald won't happen to you. All it would've taken was someone saying "No way, bub. Had you been Awakened, you'd have a clouded noggin', but the animancers could probably clear that up. And had you just been a Watcher, you could've gone for decades with no problem. But you're both. You dun' screwed now." Or simply split up the event at which time you became a Watcher and not have you become Awakened until another Act entirely, at which point "the real" story would start. The entire first act could be about you trying to figure out what you are, and what Watchers are, and then when you have, wooosh, s**t you're awakened, welcome to crazytown.

First of all, I really hate how there's spoiler-map-makers throughout the entire game. They're everywhere, before you even know what is what. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a "Dragon's Secret Cave"-marker before a Dragon Cave, or something to that effect. It's idiotic. I had no idea there was a secret lab in the basement of Raedric's Hold, but then, yup, it's right there, on the map. But anyway, since this is in the game.. There's' a map marker missing in the Main Interior of Raedric's Hold. By the western stairwell/staircase, you can choose to go up or down. But the staircase going upwards isn't marked on the map.

Most of the following response contains minor spoilers, so I'll spoiler-tag it. It is nothing super-major, though. I'm not disagreeing with Sensuki, but I do consider your point valid; but on the other hand, I'm by far more of a fluffmuppet than Sensuki, so whatever. I also think I like the game more than Sensuki, but I also wasn't as invested in it, so.. mileage may vary. However...

They are bugged.

More oddities: Osrya cannot be conversed with at all. Now, this is probably not a bug, but it's a major oversight that you're completely locked out of a lot of meaningful content, that may end up making you doubt your fealty to Raedric, just because you decided to side with Raedric. (first image) You can touch everything in Osrya's Room, except the hidden trigger by her bed, that actually only opens a secret passageway.. that you probably already have access to from the other side... although you can't open it from that side. The second you touch that, she goes hostile for no reason whatsoever. (second image) The fact that you can reach the secret passageway from the other side, but not open it, is annoying as hell, because it makes you go through a full loading screen just to get into what amounts to an empty, claustrophobic room with only one exit - back the way you came, for another immediate loading screen. Also, from that room, world geometry allows you to look into one of the hallways (last picture).

Given that he asks me to free him, but I can identify him that he's hostile before I even do so, and there is no conversation with him whatsoever, this is clearly a bug. He's supposed to talk to you about Osrya. You can't help him or tell him to escape; he's hostile right away.

A game warden could probably a Hunter; one of the options is simply "I used to spend a lot of time on my own in the wilderness". Funnily enough, Hunter also covers Fisherman. They should probably add some information on what each Background "covers" in terms of roleplaying. Like adding "The hunter background describes anyone that used to hunt or gather for their village, hunted monsters for a living, acted as a game warden or outdoorsman, or simply was a dedicated fisherman" to the Hunter text. "The laborer background can be used to describe someone that did manual labour for a living, such as being a builder, a blacksmith or a cook". I mean, look at Clergyman. If you pick Clergyman, it's probably because you want to be a Clergyman, right? Well, one of the options is actually to tell Calisca that, nu-uh, it's just a lie you tell people so you can manipulate them. So the Clergyman background can also be used for a con-man. ...except, well, the conversation options you'll unlock later all has to do with being an actual clergyman, but w/e. Either way, yeah, I can wish for a lot more. Not really. That's just a lie I tell people so I can manipulate them.

*sigh* I don't like --> mediocre. You of all people... Let's say it has RTwP combat designed below average level on all accounts and call it a day without jumping to conclusions about overall quality of the game? I don't want to sound ungrateful for all your really hard work and passion you poured into the beta, but you decided you don't like the game long before it was done. Why do we need to convince people that they actually like POE when they have said (and explained) that they don't? It's just one game and people are going to dislike it, life goes on. Enough about POE, let's get back to Star Trek and Song of Ice and Fire discussion! Conversely, why do people feel that coming to a message board dedicated to fans of a game and telling them that a game they enjoyed is complete &(($ and the worst game ever made will accomplish anything positive? Because the message board is not dedicated to fans of the game, but to the game itself? If the board was only for "fans" (Read: complete and utter fanboys that never contributed constructively to anything in their entire lives) it would be a tireless and tiresome circle-jerk. It is the worst possible state for a forum to be in.

You know what? That excerpt alone conveyed the whole "Awakened and Watcher are completely separate things and it's a problem that you are both" better than the entire game does. The game should've done a much better job of driving that point home, maybe even not have had you Awaken at the same time you became a Watcher.

No. It has nothing to do with building kensai/mages or whatever, or even really increasing the capacity of tanks doing damage. The issue is really that specialization is too rewarding. There is no diminishing returns on anything, and a lot of game mechanics favour over-specialization. If you want to be a good tank, you stack Deflection upon Deflection, you take the Heaviest armour, and you max Perception and Resolve. Like I said on pg. 1, there's a lot of good mechanics that ties together into not-so-good results. The primarily offenders in this case - imho - is, very, very simply put: Dichotomous Armour System; go big, or go home. If you need armour, you need lots of it, or you likely need none at all. There is no easy fix for this, but there are concrete suggestions in the threads that examine the issue. The War on Movement; everything in the game dissuades you from moving, or taking tactical decisions in combat that involves movement. Once in Engagement, you do not want to break Engagement, and the lack of a Hold Position command makes sure that once engaged, you stay engaged, promoting super-tanks. Since Engagement is apparently non-negotiable, the best band-aid would be to introduce a 5ft-step mechanic that lets you move around the enemies you have engaged, add a Hold Position command, and drop the movement recovery penalties. Cleaning up world collision would also help a little. Lopsided Attribute Bonuses; the attributes are incredibly clear in what you want to invest in by role, not even by class, and it promotes only two roles; Tank vs. DPS, and it promotes and rewards min/max-ing. Again, there are many possible solutions to this that have been discussed in the past, but Obsidian does not seem to want to change the Attribute bonuses anymore, to the point where they'd rather compromise the CNPC attributes because they know that the Attribute Bonuses are broken. Accuracy vs. Deflection, nothing in-between; Gkthellar covered this pretty well earlier. Tanks do not need an overhaul. The underlying systems that results in the heavy reliance on dedicated tanks does.

Objectively wrong. The only way Fireball is superior to Noxious Burst is in cast speed (Fast vs. Average, whatever that means). Fire may matter a little, depending on what you're facing (Shades, Shadows, etc) but for anything armoured (that is, most things), Corrode is better than Fire anyway. Also, it Sickens. I enjoy keeping both. Fireballs for Shades, Shadows and so on, or when I want to get the attack out quickly, and Noxious Burst for everything else. I feel that they should be set further apart by increasing the size of Fireball and make the "friendly zone" smaller on Noxious Blast, but that's really just nitpicking.

There's a lot of criticism on the forum. Yes, there are some fanboys that just won't let up, even in the face of insurmountable evidence on certain points, not even giving an inch, and yes, there is the regular autism crew that you see on all forums, but when it comes to hiveminding, the PoE forum is actually refreshingly free, especially when it comes to the people that participate more than average. There's actually so much criticism on the forum that I sometimes worry that it's becoming one-sided, or depressive, which is why I often point out that I still like the game, and almost feel like I need to make excuses to come with additional critique. Or that I fear that certain developers (and I'm not talking specifically about the ones like Sawyer) may feel that they don't want to go here anymore. Most of it is because we genuinely care about the game on some level or another. When it comes to criticism vs. fanboyism, look at this thread, I think it's actually the perfect example. Most reasonable people have agreed that many of the conclusions raised in the review are valid, they have simply expressed a distaste for how it was presented, or the manner in which those conclusions were raised (which yes, matters a lot). It's a s**t review. We know it's a s**t review. But we can still discuss it's points and merits - or the clear lack thereof - like thinking people. It's a good game. I wouldn't go so far as to call it average. I think it has amazing potential. But it still has issues, and those issues are explored in depth as a matter of routine at the forums by now, and the forum certainly isn't full of fanboys. I enjoy the level we keep overall, honestly.

It is not bugged, it is just stupid. Do not seek malice when ignorance may do.

Contributing factors: First stage of grief and loss; denial & isolation. Post-purchase rationalization and buyers remorse. Stockholm syndrome. It would've been, wouldn't it? Q_Q And Riker as both Captain and First Officer, now all they'd have to get rid of was Mr. Dong-Faced Jar-Jar and the show could actually have been insanely amazing.

I just wish GRRM would finish The Winds of Winter so I won't get spoilered to death next year. *dread* Really? I'd rather dread watching Voyager again. VOY never got past being mediocre even when it had seasons with fairly good episodes (e.g. 4 and 5) because there are a LOT of stinker episodes and it features the single worst Star Trek episode ever made: Threshold. Writing Janeway as if she's suffering from multiple personality disorder without anyone in Starfleet noticing didn't help either. Say, what was the topic again? I want to murder the "What about the Prime Directive?!"-"To hell with the Prime Directive!"-Janeway. Worst. Captain. Ever. They should've stuck to the idea to have Riker as the Captain of the Voyager. Imagine William Riker as the Starfleet Captain, and Tom Riker as the maquis Commander. The sad thing is that there wouldn't have been a story, because they would've been back in the Alpha Quadrant by the end of the second episode.

It's 10%, afaik, but yes, it should definitely be listed. Sometimes I get the feeling that the developers have deliberately obfuscated mechanics for some reason. Like this - why wouldn't you list the actual value? Especially since "Low Endurance" is used many times for different passives, such as the Deathlike Racial, which works at 25%, for example. As a side note, I've gotten some good mileage out of the Deathlike Racial and Bloody Slaughter. As a duelist Paladin with a rapier, deathblows is practically the only thing I can do.

Oh, don't worry. I met Volo 15 years ago and he hasn't changed a bit so I just popped in to have a quick jab for old time's sake. Eh... to actually contribute something sort of on-topic, I think that both sides of the argument are correct in their own way. Me, for instance, I played a hundred hours of Morrowind hoping it would finally become something I liked down the road. It just didn't. I also watched the entire run of Andromada hoping it would at some point find its way back to the cheesy but thoughtful goodness I loved during its first and a half seasons. It just never did, but I am like that. I like finishing TV shows and games that I started for some reason. But I also know a good deal of people who don't. They stop watching a TV show once it goes bad and they stop playing a game they don't like even if it comes with recommendations and is part of a series they enjoyed without ever looking back. Every now and then I envy them. I'm currently watching Star Trek: TNG with my GF, who has never seen it, and I'm kinda dreading when we get to Deep Space Nine. But I'm still going to watch it. Because.. it's part of the TNG-DS9-VOY series, dammit! I watched Season 1 and 2, then I started reading the books and have had no interest in the TV-series since.

I discredited this nonsense pages ago. If you don't have some masochist tendencies (and some argue that this also means that you enjoy playing the game) or get paid to play game and review it I will claim that it is non-sense to claim that there are nothing that you enjoy in game if you play it over 100 hours. It is just absurd to think that somebody would use their free time when they are free to do anything the like to do something that they don't like to do over 100 hours especially when there is no benefits from it. But maybe I just don't understand other people which is quite often the case. I assure you scrotiemcb is correct. One of my friends is a fan of Daggerfall & Morrowind, when Oblivion came out he was beyond ecstatic. He played it for at least 100 hours. He didn't like it. I watched him play multiple times and having no fun at all. He kept playing in the hope that the game would get better. He didn't like Daggerfall at first either, but once he understood it he loved it. He's actually the one who got me into elderscolls. He was hoping that Oblivion would be like Daggerfall; rough around the edges and not fun to the uninitiated, but great once you understand it. It wasn't like Daggerfall though. It just sucked (to him, I actually think it's good WITH MODS), and it just took a long time for him to accept it wasn't going to get any better. This. Oblivion was the same for me. I was ecstatic. First time out of the starting dungeon, I almost cried at how beautiful it was. I've played it a lot. I've played it several times. I've tried again and again. I've had hundreds of mods on at once. I've run up and down the length and breadth of Cyrodiil. I can not stand it. I have never finished it. But I keep wanting to, because deep down there somewhere, I want there to be a good game. But there's not. And that makes me sad. It took me a very long time to finally put it away in disgust, and I'll probably never install it again.

...it's a roleplaying game. Roleplaying is literallly the purpose of the game. By any right, issues like this should warrant greater discussion than any systemic error. The issue isn't really that they're exclusive, but that they are exclusive before you even finish the quests - you become locked out for merely agreeing to do the quests - and are uninteresting in that you cannot lie or do anything once it's been revealed what they want you to do. You lose player agency. This is in addition to even more screwed-up issues.

It does in a way. The Wood Elf racial and the talent Marksman don't work in melee and seeing how most melee weapons are good at interrupting while most ranged weapons are vulnerable to interrupts, there is a sort of built-in drawback to having a gun in your hand when someones flails at you violently in close range Removing a conditional bonus is not the same thing as imposing a penalty. The conditionals imposed to Woodie racials and the Marksman Talent are balancing factors, not circumstantial penalties. Also, this still means that there is no difference between shooting someone at point-blank range and to get out your melee weapons. Once engaged, you have lost those bonuses, anyway (and, indeed, did so as soon as the opponent was within 4 metres) and you gain nothing by switching to melee weapons - which was the point I was making. If you are specialized for ranged combat, the idea that you will switch to melee weapons for added Interrupt appears positively pathetic, judging by trade-offs. Interrupts are rare and ****ty, either way, and it won't make a difference to you in the end. Then you might as well switch to an Arbalest instead and it's 0,75 sec Interrupt, if that's what you're after. This seems like semantics to me. If you're playing a Wood Elf ranged specialist (whether rogue or ranger) and you're predicating your build on the Wood Elf's range bonuses, losing those bonuses because the enemy gets in your face seems rather like a penalty to me, whether it's called one or not. Also, IIRC, the Marksman talent gives its acc bonus vs distant targets, so that's another bonus that would be lost if an enemy gets in your face when you're a ranged combatant. Whether it's an outright penalty or the loss of a bonus, the result is the same, a loss of accuracy due to being at close range when you're a ranged combatant intending to fight at a distance. As for whether you have "nothing to gain" by switching to melee weapons, arguably you very well could have something to gain. If you switch to a one-handed weapon with nothing in the off-hand, you'll get an accuracy bonus. Or you could choose to use a shield with that 1H weapon to get a greater deflection bonus. Or you could switch to a pair of weapons. Or you could switch to a 2H weapon, though I'm not sure that you'd gain much there. It seems to me that there are plenty of advantages to be had, not even factoring in the possibility that your melee weapon of choice may have some nice effects that make it more worth using than your ranged weapon. Except it's not semantics, it's a very important difference, especially in a case like this. You've lost that bonus whether you switch weapons or not; it has no bearing. As for the switching to melee weapons, out of what you listed, only one stands out as having any actual benefit - Shields. If you are just about to die, and you desperately do not want to die, then the abysmal gain you will get from switching to a shield might keep you alive for another swing, maybe two. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that the gain from a shield, unless you specialize for it, is not really worth it. It is one of the reasons the tank-vs-non-tank dichotomy is so strong in this game - you need to pump the Deflection high to make it really worth it. But it *could* still help you avoid a blow that could kill you. It's unlikely, but it's still something worth considering.

Because philosophy isn't a big thing anywhere else? I'm thinking aristotelian and socratic philosophy is only really a big thing in Ixamitl, which would actually explain why they get Scholar, too, since they'd have academia of a sort, I guess. And yes, I get that lawlessness is a big thing in the Archipelago - it's more or less right there in the description of it - but would you say that you'd be a highwayman in an archipelago? As for The White That Wends, I'm getting some definite Winterfell/Beyond-the-Wall-vibes from it, too. It sounds like exactly the kind of place that would have entire tribes that engages in raiding, if anything. And I don't think it sounds like an arbitrary restriction at all. The Background is supposed to be in your background, after all. And it is relevant, because it affects some conversation options, and it defines part of your biography.

Used to love Warhammer, then they decided to retcon everything and ruin all of it forever, and now I can't even get excited for Total War: Warhammer, because I just know that they'll shoehorn in all the dumb.

My argument isn't really as much what is realistic as what feels thematically... "right". I agree that from a realistic point of view, rapiers aren't inherently more accurate, but as you say, it's a lot harder to skewer someone than it is to simply swing at them, but that's where the thematic feels come into play - a rapier is a precision weapon, a light weapon you take aimed pokes with, thus it gets a +Accuracy bonus. Daggers I share completely, I see no reason for them to get +Accuracy. Most daggers in the game look more like knives anyway, and the stilettos fulfil the whole pokey-pokey thing and circumvents DR because of it's short-range aim or whatever. Which is why I said that I want Daggers to have "best of Slash/Pierce" - a bonus Light weapons currently do not even have access too, and Daggers suffer from the same thing as Clubs - why would you use them? Spears get +Accuracy for the same reason Rapiers do, I guess. So it's much less about what is realistic, and more about feeling and mechanics. Mechanically, 3 out of 6 light weapons have +Accuracy, and no weapon gets a bonus to Interrupt (which I feel would fit Clubs) and no weapon gets "best of" (which I feel would fit Daggers). That's the perspective I'm keeping. The strict realism really never enters into it.

But. He did. That's the problem. Kolsc did send you. I'm definitely going to have some characters that will be all about the murdering of Raedric, but from an in-universe perspective, offing his wife can be entirely understandable, and with the character I'm currently playing, a deathlike bleak walker aristocrat, a traditionalist that really hate it when people try to set him up to do things (just ask the vailian trader in Defiance Bay oh no wait he's dead), I'll probably end up working with Raedric, just like I'd probably end up working with the Doemenels if the game didn't insist on bugging out on me. My point being, that I don't really care as much as I think it's weird and inconsistent. It doesn't matter to you, because you're not siding with Raedric anyway, but it doesn't mean that there's no issue. I'd have a problem with any dialogue or quest that didn't offer a variety of solutions or approaches as appropriate to multiple different characters. Hell, I'm the kind of guy that feels physically ill when I do despicable things in games (such as hurling the child to the pavement, or stealing teddy bears in FO3), but I still love that I *could* do those things. And I think it's super-odd that there's no "organic" choice for my character in this instance. It's not a strange or out-of-place sequence of events; Kolsc approached me, I asked him what right he had to rebel against his rightful lord, he told me to consider it, I decided to consider it by seeking out Raedric and talk to him, I was stopped at the gate, told the guards to step aside or I'd spill their guts on the ground, then I spilled their guts on the ground, went inside to talk to the man, and was faced with this. It's not devastating, just.. kinda.. odd. It could be improved, so I brought it up. See, I don't even know who Osya is. I found some Berathian robes on another floor, but I didn't pursue it, because I'm a Bleak Walker, so I'm not going to skulk about anyway, and I had priorities - I'm going to talk to Raedric. Why would I run around the whole castle like some kind of rogue or mind-thief, before I face Raedric? I just wanted to talk. To immediately offer your services might be a bit odd, but there should at least be an option to tell him that you're there to talk about the situation and that you met someone named Kolsc. Or that you don't trust Kolsc. Or, as an Aristocrat, to tell him straight out that you support him, since he's the rightful heir. Or, if you're a Mercenary or Goldpact Knight, just offer your services. But this, as it is, is just kinda.. odd. You're a Bleak Walker, you don't talk. You kill, maybe ask question later. Which is exactly what you got, is it not? Oh, don't get me wrong, I like it. I just think that it's odd that it shows up now of all the places in the game. This is so far the first time I've seen a Bleak Walker choice. It makes sense, but it still feels out of place because out of all the times it could've shown up, it shows up now.

Oh thank god Gkathellar came into the thread and steamrolled the stupid. I was afraid I'd have to be productive today.