Luckmann

Hotfixes.

I've never, ever, seen an enemy willingly trying to disengage. I've seen engagement abuse, but that's not the same thing.

One word: Mods. You just keep telling yourself that.

That would be a fair point if we didn't know that it's factually wrong. A lot of children are born as hollowborn, but not all, and we not only meet infant hollowborn, but also children that have been born during Waidwen's Legacy. There appears to be a good amount of births still going on, so there's still definitely some good stuff to build on here. And either way, the player character certainly hasn't been living this life, and it's actually the perfect opportunity to take a stand on moral principles that many in the game world would probably give many ****s about.

The number also includes hard to notice stuff like a Black Hound Inn background convo telling you filthy Orlan to go back to Defiance Bay and a line from the server that you shouldn't think about stealing their job. Race also locks you out of certain lines, like the Smithy guard not telling an Orlan that he thinks all Orlans are thieves; but I didn't count the lock-outs. Wow, Orlans seem to get enough **** for both themselves and the deatlikes.

I dismiss the premise. There is no reason to believe that "hardcore" players are inherently more interested in exploring and doing side content than casuals are to any truly meaningful degree. Furthermore, the defining issues in terms of challenge is not one of experience (which is doled out at an insane rate) or equipment (which is pretty meh at best, anyway), but systemic issues dealing with things like immunities, a lack of strategic and tactical depth as well as reactivity, and easily repeated and replicated encounter approaches that are almost universally successful.

And suddenly, IE mod is the definitive POE mod. In before it drops SCS level scripts. Suddenly? IEMod has been the definitive PoE mod since before the game was released.

I don't see why, really. D&D hasn't been taking point for a long time now, but it hasn't exactly been dead, so there's no reason Pillars of Eternity would suddenly make D&D take off or cross-pollinate or whatever.

...Battletoads? Battletoads was hard because it was broken, not because it was, well, actually hard. But if you've finished BG2 many times, I have no idea how you can say that PoE is pretty challenging on normal, especially not past Act 1.

That's.. not how it works. Abilities at Odd Levels, Talents at Even Levels. Knockdown. Rapid Recovery. Defender. Never picked him up beyond that. There used to be a bug that gave Edér more Talents than he should have gotten if you picked him up at the right level (Level 2, I think). This gave him Weapon Focus: Ruffian, which I always thought was nonsense - Weapon Focus: Peasant or Soldier would've been much more appropriate. Not sure if the bug is still present, since it's now much harder to pick him up at Level 2, after they grotesquely boosted the experience you gain in small parties (for some utterly incomprehensible and completely demented reason).

That 17 Cipher is just so ****ing crazy.

Right at the beginning, just fresh out of the first dungeon, on Hard, that felt alright. Then it slowly drops off until the Stronghold, then bam, downhill from there. It's not just a drop in relative difficulty, but the combat quickly becomes repetitive, rote, predictable and just.. uninteresting. Why would they be screwed? People haven't been screwed by the IE games. People weren't screwed by.. well.. pretty much any game. I don't understand why people think that the forum is some kind of super-elitist microcosm of genius-level tacticians. Anyone that's played the game past the first Act can already get 90% of the encounters down to a science. One of the most widely criticized aspects of gameplay is that you don't even need to pay attention to anything, and just sorta stumble through the game. I think it's rather insulting to think that people would be screwed if they had to think for a moment. And even so, there are still different difficulties. Let those that well and truly suck play on Easy. You seem to think it's about difficulty and numbers inflation, but it's not. There are concrete issues with the gameplay and a wealth of suggested solutions on the forum. It's not just about it being easy. It's about why it's easy, and it's ultimately not about making it harder, but about forcing you to think or adapt - which of course will make it harder, too, but again, if you want it easy, that option will still be there.

For my first party, my ridiculously uselessly built Paladin, I only used a merc right at the beginning, to have someone capable of removing traps and finding secrets. This party is also based on the pre-1.03 companions, so they're worse, from a mechanical perspective. For my second party, I've regrettably been forced to fill it up with mercs until I can get a full party of companions. I just picked up Kana Rua, so I only have one merc now. This game is post-1.03, but I intend to correct the Attributes again, because I prefer flavour-based Attributes for CNPC:s. Obsidian should've fixed the Attributes to begin with, not neuter the characters' substance. But other than that, CNPC:s. I have no love for the merc system in the game at all, and I'll never hire more than I absolutely need. Do note that I play on Hard, because PotD is just ridiculous bloat with inflated numbers. Few things are worse than a cheating AI. I really wish I could play the PotD encounters but without the artificial boosting.

Depends on what you want to do. But usually spears.

And the attack part of any Ability that uses the weapon, yes.

Confirmed non-functional in 1.04.

Well it's not really a penalty, you just miss out on your bonus. It might seem like splitting hairs, but it's an important distinction. The "dead zone" of those effects are restrictions imposed on a bonus. And far from everyone is a wood elf or have the Marksman Talent (well.. I guess most ranged specialists will take it, but when is debatable). And yeah, I don't think anyone wants us to have to carry normal arrows. I'm a stickler for a lot of stuff and think that game restrictions and hassles can act as positive limitations on the player's freedom, but I can't see any merit whatsoever to cart normal arrows around. On the issue of specialist arrows/ammunition, I think it's a good indication that there actually isn't any special Abilities that covers things like that, despite it being a very obvious way to easily inflate the number of Abilities a Ranger could pick from, or the number of base Talents. So hopefully it'll get added at some point.

I ask myself if deities are even capable of recognizing the soulless as alive, though. Not that you can tell before birth, or.. huhmm.. that's a good question, actually, why wouldn't animancers be able to tell if a child has a soul before it's born?

No reason to give it specifically to the ranger. Just give us special ammunitions, really, and make the special kinds of ammunitions distinct between bullets, arrows and bolts. But yeah, I feel that the Ranger is... I can't put my finger on it. It feels bland, auto-attack-y. It's hard to even take active abilities, and many of them feel unflavoured. When I first saw the Binding Roots Ability, I was like "Aww yiis, I can take that and the Envenomed Strike Talent and I can be a bit more shaman-/nature-y" and then I saw that it's not even available until lvl 9. Most ranger "Abilities" are situational passives, it seems. But I digress. I too miss special arrows and ammunition. I want to be an aumauan fighter with Magic Bullet bullets, an elven ranger with Poison Arrows, and a dwarven rogue with piercing bolts. But.. that's how it is now? No?

...unfortunately. Honestly I think it'd be better the other way around. :|

That might have been the one in the thread I was thinking of. I like that some cool items are in stores - it's not like you can buy tons of them if you're skipping large swaths of the game (thus not making as much money) and even if you sold everything you still couldn't buy EVERY cool item from every shop. So I think it's to give people playstyle options, as well as be a money-sink. Oh, I'm not opposed to that at all. I think that a lot of cool items could or should be in stores. I just think that it feels like it's an inordinate amount, and that the placement is odd. I loved when you finally reached Baldur's Gate (of Baldur's Gate fame) and could visit all the high-class stores, with Sorcerous Sundries sitting right there at the gates, waiting for me. :3 Friendly Arms didn't have anything at all, and the smithy in Beregost, supposedly one of the best smiths in the lands, and a bunch of +1 stuff, but in terms of uniques, only like 3-4 items, 1 of which was cursed, as far as I can remember. And then when you get to Defiance Bay, it's a group of hawkers standing around, with a whole bunch of unique, supposedly super-rare and powerful stuff to sell, and that's pretty much it. Or at least that's how it feels. Yeah, you only want one of those gloves, but damn that +2 Mechanics is nice to have.

It's hidden. Go all sneaky-sneaky and have your Mechanics expert lick the bucket next to the corpse on the left side of the bloody pit. If it's not there, I don't know what to say. I could swear under oath that it was there, but there's always the chance that I've mixed it up. Edit: I found a source saying that it's actually bought from Winfrith in Dyrford, so.. eh.. awkward. Edit 2: http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Unique_Weapons Booyah. Not a full list, but it does list where a lot of things are found.

My first character was/is a Deathlike Bleak Walker Paladin focused in Perception and Resolve, with some Dexterity and Intellect, that one-hands a rapier, dressed in nothing but Clothes. Ever considered using a fast one-handed weapon with low damage for Flames of Conviction? Don't. The only good part is that the Deathlike racial and the Bloody Slaughter Talent, with a fast weapon and high crit-rate (thanks to +12 Accuracy) means that I can get a lot of finishing blows. But it's totally not worth it by any stretch of the imagination, even with The Black Path (Frightens enemies when you get the killing blow). And even so, it's not hard at all. :|

Yeah, it feels weird that there's really no incentive to switch from a ranged weapon when you're in melee. I might be wrong, though, but I'm pretty sure that there's no penalty. If there is, I haven't noticed. The system is.. obtuse. Makes it pointless to switch weapons when you get engaged in melee as a ranged character, which should be a pretty big problem for ranged-focused characters. It would feel a lot more appropriate as for example a Ranger, getting out your dual sabres or something, once the enemy has run up to you and you can't run away. It doesn't have to be devastating, just significant, like a -10 to Accuracy and Deflection.