Luckmann

Should've stuck to their guns on that.

There....Is....Combat.....XP....In....This....Game. Unfortunately.

Open Inventory. Pick up the Consumable. Drop it on your Avatar. ??? Profit. Yeah, it's a bit... unintuitive, if you ask me, but it's supposed to work. I haven't tried it myself, yet, because I haven't been playing in a few days. Only works outside of Combat, too.

But that's just it - you don't need to keep it gamey rather than sensible. You could've just come up with a more sensible solution, it doesn't mean that you use the current system and just tack on a few days of building time like for the Western Barbican (to stick to the original example). I gave several possible solutions, none of which would require you to have a "free resting point at the keep at that point" or would cause "a halt in the gameplay". And you didn't point anything out; you just said that the resources were there. But nothing I have said have even hinted at that being questioned. Nothing. I wave it away because it has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with anything I said. Ever. There is nothing to explain this sudden automagical restoration of the Eastern Barbican at all, when everything else takes days. Whether you have the resources or not is utterly immaterial. If you have problems maintaining the suspension of disbelief and the verisimilitude of the scenario due to gameplay purposes, you should consider reworking the scenario so that it satisfies both points, such as the solutions I proposed - or any of the countless other possible solutions. Anything else is just jarring and clumsy, and feels out of place. The Stronghold is littered with issues like this, but the specific example of the Eastern Barbican suddenly and inexplicably repairing itself from less than one hour to the next, is probably the most obvious one.

All the weapons are perfectly viable. Eh.. viable, sure. Perfectly viable? Nah. I do agree that the game actually has a good variety of weapons, though, and it's great that all weapons have their own basic quirks - although some of those quirks are strange and sometimes arbitrary, and like you say, sometimes quite small indeed. They definitely could use some work, especially when it comes to enchanting and such, and the unique versions of weapons somehow manages to feel both "lackluster" and "special snowflake" at the same time, which probably has something to do with how enchanting and modifiers work, too. And I think it was a mistake to basically have the Fine/Exceptional/Superb modifiers as Enchantments, which to me really cheapens the whole idea. I think they should be intrinsic to the weapon itself, and not count towards some enchanting cap, similar to how weapons already get a basic quirk just depending on what kind of weapon it is. But the game absolutely does not suffer from a small variety of weapons, no. The weapons are diverse and often interesting; it's just that the actual damage types often do not matter nearly enough, so you're never forced to change, and the game doesn't promote specialization in a specific kind of weapon, either. Preferably, the game should allow for both approaches.

Hassat, come on, it's not that hard, I know you can read. The issue I have is that it finishes instantly and automagically, and it was a comment related to a post about how there's a lot of things with the Stronghold that makes no sense. That the Stronghold just happens to have the funds and resources for a single upgrade has absolutely nothing to do with that. I think we're all fine with it being free.

Do you have a SSD?

Ignoring the whole memorial debacle and the perpetually offended, the most questionable changes were probably; The change to Slicken to be single-hit, like a damage-less prone-making short-range fireball, instead of a Hazard AoE. Yes, it needed to be nerfed, but that one change completely changes the nature of the spell. The nerf to Chill Fog, making it FF AoE instead of Foe AoE, without anything to compensate. Me, personally, do not mind the actual change, since it never made any sense to begin with, but I would've liked to see it get a bigger radius or do more damage to compensate and keep it relevant. Wizards are already suffering in the whole AoE department compared to Druids, which weren't touched at all. The change to CNPC Attributes due to widespread acknowledgement that the previous distribution on most of them was objectively terrible. All that was did was acknowledge that the current Attribute system has some pronounced issues; but instead of fixing those issues, they compromised the character concepts. Like, what? Biggest ones I can think of right now. It was discussed extensively in the concerned threads. The 1.03 patch was fairly big, while 1.04 appears fairly small. At least the preliminary notes. Do you want to continue the main plot? Sorry, you need to rest 6 times before you can do so. Maybe try running 3 circles around your unlocked maps? (Why would you possible complain about that???) That's beside the point. If it's something you need to do to continue the plot, they should've reconsidered it and instead opened up the route through some other means, even if it would just be "The Steward influenced the Stronghold and the path now lies open". My complaint is specifically that the Eastern Barbican is repaired instantly and without explanation. I would have been fine with even a "The Eastern Barbican is closed and overgrown, it will take 8 hours to clear" and then a quick timeskip. Anything, really. The current implementation is jarring and it's integration into the main quest is clumsy. Another one of those little loading screens with a little story, like the one that the game starts with, maybe; "You exit Caed Nua, and take a deep breath, wondering if

A better solution would be to keep the stash as a separate file next to the save file. Yes, this opens up for easy duplication/cheating, but honestly, who gives a ****? You want to cheat, you're going to iroll20s anyway.

I think that's unfortunately beyond the purview of a Patch. You'd need a bunch of new content.

Because Social Justice Warriors are poison, a cancer that never goes away. The best you can hope for is remission. It's like a cloud of diseased spores that worms it's way into every nook and cranny, looking for something to be offended by and attack; like a virus turning the own body against itself, or a fungus that corrupts and rots the brain until the organism climbs up high and kills itself. This is so much hyperbole other hyperboles ask it for candy money. Don't forget grandiloquence..it also reeks of grandiloquence This. This I am willing to accept. Partly because I learned a new word, and it's a word that in it's very essence is the same thing it describes. That's wonderful.

Because Social Justice Warriors are poison, a cancer that never goes away. The best you can hope for is remission. It's like a cloud of diseased spores that worms it's way into every nook and cranny, looking for something to be offended by and attack; like a virus turning the own body against itself, or a fungus that corrupts and rots the brain until the organism climbs up high and kills itself. This is so much hyperbole other hyperboles ask it for candy money. It's not hyperbole, it's figurative. Pick up a book once in a while, Bryy.

Am I the only one seeing the notes and thinking.. "Eh, whatever"? Compared to the wealth of debatable changes in 1.03, this one doesn't even feel like it's worth discussing, really. Which is actually a good thing, considering that many of the changes in 1.03 was so questionable, this looks like a straight-up positive improvement in all regards. I was still hoping that they would go back on some of the changes in 1.03, but I guess that's too much to hope for.

Because Social Justice Warriors are poison, a cancer that never goes away. The best you can hope for is remission. It's like a cloud of diseased spores that worms it's way into every nook and cranny, looking for something to be offended by and attack; like a virus turning the own body against itself, or a fungus that corrupts and rots the brain until the organism climbs up high and kills itself.

While I think that it's a terrible expansion in itself, I want to give honourable mention to Dragon Age: Origins: Awakening in regards to stronghold ownership/land management. I was really expecting something along the lines of NWN2:s Crossroad Keep and the DA:O:A:s Vigil's Keep, taking the best things and making something stellar out of it.

I don't follow your logic. Why would the Talents that increase Spells Per Rest/Encounter become wasted? As a side note, I think the whole "entire-spell-levels-suddenly-becomes-per-encounter" is a fundamentally broken mechanic, and will get progressively more insane as levels rise, but that's really beside the point.

Let's actually post the preliminary notes in this thread: Should've included it in the OP, really.

Which Aura?

I'd say that she's a Ranger, except the Animal Companion pretty much screws that.

Gameplay Min/Max, Grieving Mother or Aloth. Both start with +1 in Mechanics, meaning that in the long run, they'll have to invest significantly less points for that next +1 step. Roleplay-wise, Durance. Not only is he actually not a bad pick Gameplay wise, starting with 3 points in Mechanics, but he's a Priest of Magran, a technically-minded goddess that's all the mechanics of warfare. That said, he'll still have to pay "full price" for his skillups, so even though he has Mechanics 3, he's still outdone by Grieving Mother or Aloth's +1 in the end.

The fact that the spell-ranks go up to 10 is something I believe to be systemic future-proofing, nothing else. I would be very surprised if the two expansions added that many levels. Pillars of Eternity is meant to be a rather low-level adventure.

>Steam oh_you.jpg Seriously though, the patches will still be important to the game, and it's not worth passing on them. I'd rather just not play, if I have to choose between fixes to core gameplay and official improvements and fixes (...well... not that they always fix things.. *cough*memorial*cough*companionattributes*cough*) and the IEMod additions... I will really choose neither. It's just not worth the aggravation.

I can't really say that I disagree at all. The leveling curve definitely needs to be adjusted upwards - considerably so. I'm not sure I'd want the *same* exponential curve as BG/II, but it definitely needs to be adjusted to grow exponentially in some fashion. I suggested the very same thing just today.

I don't see the problem with estocs. I actually think great swords are better overall since two damage weapons tend to be better than DR reduction more often than not. That argument makes no sense. Great swords uses the best out of Slash/Piercing depending on the enemy's DR. Estocs have a Penetration of 5, and thus ignore 5 DR. This means that the difference between the Slashing DR and the Piercing DR of the enemy has to be greater than 5 in order for the Great Sword to be better than the Estoc, while the Estoc will always do 5 extra damage against anything that has 5 DR or more - which means practically everything. There are a lot of enemies where the gap between those two DR values is greater than 5. There may be, true. But there are definitely a lot more enemies of all types that have more than DR 5 but less than a 5 DR difference between Slashing and Piercing. Carting around both a Great Sword (...why did they not call it Greatsword? And Warhammer..? sigh..) and a Pollaxe isn't actually a bad idea at all. I might actually do that at some point.