Luckmann

You are assuming a system in which everyone's abilities use spell slots, which isn't the case in this game. You are assuming such a thing is written in stone, it is not. The opposition against pre-buffing is almost universally based on how it worked in the IE games, and that there is a strict dichotomy at play - IE Pre-Buffing vs. No Pre-Buffing. Which has been proven to be patently false. PrimeJunta's point was that Pre-Buffing can be balanced, and in that, he is entirely correct. There are more potential mechanisms at play than all or nothing.

No, I feel I paid what the game is worth. Which is to say, I actually didn't pay anything. But more to the point, either way, to answer the topic, yes, the game is actually good. The reason you are seeing people upset over A, B and C is that the game does have some significant issues, and people naturally have a tendency to discuss issues instead of non-issues, simply because when something isn't a problem... why would they discuss it? But yes, the game is good. Great, even. In some regards I would go as far as to say that it's amazing. This easily gets lost in the discussions, but the game is actually quite good. Obsidian has made some highly questionable decisions in the past week, which begs the question as to which direction the game or franchise will take in the future, but there is a tremendous potential in the basic game itself, and it ultimately could go either way, but there is definitely something here, and the game itself is definitely good, yes.

I don't think LGBT people want to murder you, even though the gamergate people tend to do nasty **** like stalk and swat them You say that, I want to argue with you, I want to tell you to stop trying to deflect, I want to tell you to stick to the topic, I want to tell you to stop trying to derail the thread... yet all I can think is "#SWATSawyer2015".

Because balance, of course. No, but seriously, this obviously ties into the "No Pre-Buffing" topic. Obviously. My third guess would be "Sawyer", but at this point that's getting old. Probably true, though.

"Because hard counters are boring". So instead, you can blind those without eyes, trip those without legs, and fear things without emotions, and never change your tactics, never have to adapt, and never have to work on your strategy. And thus we have... balance. But this is not DnD. There is no such mechanic in PoE (thankfully, when it comes to the magic-weapons-thing, imo, since it was a blanket immunity for no sensible reason); the reason your people are yelling out is because you are failing to penetrate their Damage Resistance/Threshold, likely because you are using a "bad" weapon. This has only happened to me at the very lowest levels, because later, the difference won't really matter that much. But it's not really associated with the topic itself, it's another mechanic entirely (a mechanic I feel isn't played up nearly enough, whether we're talking about armours or weapons).

Well to be fair, to grow a thick skin, you have to subject yourself to criticism or address it. Animals that live in isolated environments rarely develop a functional carapace, and in addition, are often spineless. Take from that analogy what you will.

"NoFog".

There's not much to the tactics beyond scouting and positioning properly, no. Before someone feels the need to defend the game here, let me make it clear that PoE is not a bad game, not by a long shot. But there is really no tactical or strategic depth to it at all, and combat, whilst I personally have found myself enjoying much of it, is about as reactive as a loaf of bread. Even Path of the Damned (the highest difficulty, not to be confused with the Hardcore/Ironman mode, whose name escapes me at the moment) only really just play up the rather simple aspects of combat, and doesn't really change anything in how you behave (or rather, should behave). It reinforces the issues, rather than forcing you to adapt or play more tactically.

This has been discussed time and time again, but for whatever reason, they've decided to keep trap/lockpick experience. Unfortunately, it's unlikely to change at this point. There are bigger issues that are not being addressed, so this ultimately relatively minor issue is unlikely to even be acknowledged.

Afaik, there is already a console command for doing that. No mod needed.

The poll is useless. Class selection is split in two parts, and neither of those parts have a "None of these"-option. The results will be wrong no matter what.

The best part is that it say suppressed, but it seems it's really not at all.

The topic does not match the poll. First you ask which we'd like to see, in the topic. Then you ask which is the most lacking, in the poll. These are two completely different things. The poll is obvious to me; Godlikes for race, and Class is rather arguable, but I'd say Ciphers/Chanters. But as for what I want? Edwin as according to Kaz.

Well.. they used to. They changed them because the Attributes many CNPC:s had were terrible choices, rather than fixing the issues with the Attribute bonuses, so that's not really true anymore.

Hidden Areas and the detection of such should be determined by Stealth, and should be detectable outside of Scout Mode. Traps and their disarming should be determined by Mechanics, and should require you to be in Scout Mode. That's my standing suggestion, but whatever. It hasn't killed the game for me, but having to pump Mechanics and then move everywhere in Scouting Mode and Fast Mode is ridiculous, yes. Dungeons and dangerous areas are not the issue. Try the middle of Defiance Bay, or areas you've already covered, or just about *any* residential housing. Yes, of course, I always assume that there are hidden purple stashes in just that exact brick in a wall, under one of the countless road stones in the middle of Defiance Bay, and in that exact painting and only that one painting. Oh, and that one floorboard in the in. No other floorboard, just that one. Really, the most obvious places in the world.

Which I have yet to see any truth in at all. Why would there be problems with one set of buffs, but not other sets of buffs? Food, Rest and Aura buffs persists through saves just fine, but another kind of buff would not? Oh please. I suspect there is no truth to it at all. You do not design mechanics like this around the limitations of an engine. If there was such a limitation, Obsidian would have roled their own "saving of the game state" code, which is likely what they did anyway, not for the reasons Gairnulf stated though. It should be stated that the claim is not Gairnulf's, but rather he is simply relaying one of the explanations we have been given at some time or another. I do not believe there is any truth to this at all, just like you say, but it's worth pointing out that Gairnulf is innocent. The rationale is irrelevant because it does not matter what it is, because it was his decision, whether the rationale was good or bad. Like I said, it's been largely covered in the thread. If you want actual quotes specifically from Sawyer on the issue, you're going to have to do some deeper digging on your own, but I can already tell you that you'll find nothing new under the sun, and nothing that hasn't already been covered.

OK thanks, but that's nearly impossible on PoE since the attributes are almost all important for each class ? I'll take the example of BG, you make a berserk, you can min INT, WIS, and CHA and max the reste. You do a fighter in PoE : what can you minimize ? INT ? OK but what else ? Actually, no, PoE rewards min/maxing considerably. There's essentially two relevant builds; Tank or DPS. Tanks want Resolve and Perception. Everyone else wants Might, Dexterity and Intellect. Yes, the Attributes are generalized, and gives equal effect regardless of class, but to most, it's not viable to build them as a tank to begin with, so you can immediately discount Perception, Resolve and Constitution. So for your question, as a Fighter, the question becomes; what do you want to do? If you want to optimize for tanking, dump Might and Dexterity, pump Resolve and Perception, wear heavy armour and a big shield. Weapon doesn't matter, you won't be doing damage, but go with a Sabre anyway. Anything left over goes into Intellect because it increases durations. You want to do damage? Dump Resolve and Perception, pump Might and Dexterity. Wear Cloth and wield an Estoc. Put any leftover points into Intellect because it increases durations. Done. PoE has some good ideals to build upon, but balanced, it is not. When people complained about the terrible Attributes of the Companions because the Attribute bonuses are lopsided (Perception is useless for Alott, a Wizard, for example) the response was to change the companions to "better" Attributes, betraying that they know that the Attributes are heavily min/max-able, and not at all "equally good" for classes based on concept, and that they are willing to compromise character themes, the mechanical/narrative interaction of the game, but never the address the Attribute issues themselves. Hopefully it's going to be something they'll address at some point in the future, probably not until a sequel, but I wouldn't hold my breath. At one point they were also talking about slowly doing away with the "Combat Only" issue with abilities, but last patch, they actually added that limitation to more abilities, not fewer, so, eh, not sure what to expect in the future. They're all over the board at this point. Thank you i understand better. BG was far more easy to min-max i think. But here, all the stats are essentials to make a good "class" character. A fighter with low damages makes no sense, as well as a fighter with no deflection. You gotta choose well what you're ready to loose when creating a character and all are importants things (except INT for fighters or PER for wizard, stuffs like theses). Personnally i think it's good. The ultimate ultimate warrior is impossible to do which leads to make sacrifices. Yes and no. In the IE games, min/maxing was easier, but at least the different classes were min/maxed in different ways, and min/maxing was largely unnecessary anyway - if you are min/maxing, you might as well roll the dice until you can just max, no? PoE has the issue that instead of a number of classes being min/maxed in different ways, there's essentially only two builds - DPS and Tanks, and their builds (Attribute-wise) are the same. A DPS Fighter and a DPS Wizard that are being played optimally will have, if not identical (Fighters should not dump Con, since they may want to be melee, and lose more Endurance than a Wizard would) then at near-identical builds, Attributes-wise. The idea of the system is great, I love the promise, the mix-and-match nature and the ideal that all attributes should apply equally regardless of character is excellent. The execution.. is questionable, and the fact that they know that it is yet refuses to acknowledge or fix it is ridiculous. Constitution is especially bad because it affects you so differently based on class. It is the only Attribute that does this, and deviates from the "same effect regardless of class" ideal that shaped the system. Constitution is bad for low-Endurance classes, because they gain very little from it compared to others, and high-Endurance classes that gain a lot from it simply do not need it.

Which I have yet to see any truth in at all. Why would there be problems with one set of buffs, but not other sets of buffs? Food, Rest and Aura buffs persists through saves just fine, but another kind of buff would not? Oh please. What's the long answer? Just to make sure you're not misrepresenting his view. I'm not misrepresenting his views, I am simply parahrasing them. At the end of the day, it was his decision and is attributed to him. At that point, the rationale he used for it in itself is largely irrelevant. That being said, I'm sure most of the "arguments" will crop up in the thread, some have already been mentioned, most of which are, of course, blown out of proportion, and based on how pre-buffing worked in the IE games, which did have some issues - issues that do not exist in PoE, whether you can buff before or after combat. There were definitely issues with pre-buffing in the IE games, yes, and I largely agree with you. For example, "this is definitely better than having to cast bla bla bla". I'm inclined to agree, yes, but it is a false dichotomy based on the premise that if there is pre-buffing, it has to work like in the IE games, with the same issues, and the only alternative is to not just curtail pre-buffing, but to artificially prevent it completely. I'm not saying you adhere to this dichotomy, just that that part of the argument between pre-buffing vs. no-pre-buffing is inherently flawed. There are many ways to make buffing viable without making pre-buffing an issue. The vast majority of buffs in PoE already have very short durations, and the number of spells per day are already limited, and the amount you can actually rest - and thus how much you can buff - is already restricted. There are definite, concrete tradeoffs to pre-buffing already built into PoE in how the buffs themselves work. You are expending effort, you are expending time, and you are expending limited resources. Restricting buffs to "Combat Only" on the basis "pre-buffing was **** in IE and therefore we have no pre-buffing" is just such horse****. As for the argument some bring forth "Hurr, then the encounters need to be rebalanced" or "Pre-buffs encourages metagaming, hurr"; No. The encounters are already not "balanced" in this regard, assuming you have spellcasters of X or Y type - they are not "balanced" with you having a priest in mind. They are not balanced with your Wizard having Slicken memorized in mind, so why would they be balanced with buffs in mind? The game isn't balanced with resting bonuses in mind, either, which are objectively buffs. They are not balanced around you having specifically a Paladin. Why would it be? You buff, you lose access to spells, that's the balancing factor. You also lose time, very valuable time, considering how quickly buffs actually run out. This is no different than spending any spell in battle, whether it's a buff or a fireball. As for metagaming, if you don't scout in a game that already awards scouting and positioning massively, you deserve to die in the game and be punished for moving around. Metagaming has done nothing for anyone in PoE that scouting can't already achieve, in 9 cases out of 10 (I'm saying 9 times out of 10 just in case someone can think of a case where this might not be true; I sure can't).

Reloading after failing is degenerative gameplay, how dare you?! This is badwrongfun! You have dishonored the great Sawyer the First, and brought great shrame upon your family! This is exactly why open-world pickpocketing cannot work and was removed as a mechanic! Do you want to take away food and encounters too? DO NOT DARE ANGER THE GREAT LEADER! I am expecting your haircut to be one of the five approved ones by the end of the day, followed by at least three laps around the gulag and ritual seppuku in the morning. "Double dropping"?

I am not really sure that I understand this. 10% percent of a longer recovery period provides a better absolute value than 10% percent of a shorter recovery period. In my opinion, dexterity is even more relevant when you plan to use higher level types of armor. You'd think, but no. Due to the recovery penalty, you won't be able to capitalize on the added speed. PoE rewards specialization; if you want to tank, you will want to specialize as a tank, which means that you'll be wearing heavy armour (if you know what's good for you), which means you'll never do good damage, no matter what you do. Meanwhile, if you want to do damage, you will want to avoid getting damaged to begin with, and armour reduces your speed no matter what, compromising your ability to do damage. The added effects from armour is not worth the tradeoff in killing efficiency, because it hurts your main function; armour is dead weight whenever you are not getting hit anyway, and if you're getting hit, the armour is not enough to reasonably keep you alive anyway, and you just shouldn't be putting yourself in that position. All in all, it means that if you want to tank, you tank, and Dexterity does nothing to help you do that, and if you want to do damage, you should never be wearing heavy armour (or, from a min/max perspective, *any* armour). I'm ridiculously full at the moment and also slightly intoxicated, so I'm not re-reading the above, and I may have been writing everything slightly confusingly, did it make sense to you?

Why not just cheat? Modding PoE isn't the friendliest thing in the world, and it's much easier to use CheatEngine or the Console to achieve what you want. I don't know anything about the console and would prefer not to interfere with what I don't understand. I can just about handle dropping a file in a folder, if someone edits it for me (if its possible), which is why I made the request to someone who actually knows something about it. Again, thanks, in anticipation of that persons help. Here you go. It is easier than modding the game, not just for anyone making the mod, but it's literally easier than you installing the mod. No-one is ever going to fulfil your request, simply because it would be pointless to do so. It would achieve nothing that you cannot already do yourself.

I am convinced that they added this in one of the Backer Betas, but it seems to have since been removed, making it incredibly annoying to eat food and such. It appears to be a concious decision, probably to avoid "pre-buffing" and "exploits". Using food items from the inventory ist verboten. Du must equippen them in ye quickbar, schnell, schnell, ja, ja.

OK thanks, but that's nearly impossible on PoE since the attributes are almost all important for each class ? I'll take the example of BG, you make a berserk, you can min INT, WIS, and CHA and max the reste. You do a fighter in PoE : what can you minimize ? INT ? OK but what else ? Actually, no, PoE rewards min/maxing considerably. There's essentially two relevant builds; Tank or DPS. Tanks want Resolve and Perception. Everyone else wants Might, Dexterity and Intellect. Yes, the Attributes are generalized, and gives equal effect regardless of class, but to most, it's not viable to build them as a tank to begin with, so you can immediately discount Perception, Resolve and Constitution. So for your question, as a Fighter, the question becomes; what do you want to do? If you want to optimize for tanking, dump Might and Dexterity, pump Resolve and Perception, wear heavy armour and a big shield. Weapon doesn't matter, you won't be doing damage, but go with a Sabre anyway. Anything left over goes into Intellect because it increases durations. You want to do damage? Dump Resolve and Perception, pump Might and Dexterity. Wear Cloth and wield an Estoc. Put any leftover points into Intellect because it increases durations. Done. PoE has some good ideals to build upon, but balanced, it is not. When people complained about the terrible Attributes of the Companions because the Attribute bonuses are lopsided (Perception is useless for Alott, a Wizard, for example) the response was to change the companions to "better" Attributes, betraying that they know that the Attributes are heavily min/max-able, and not at all "equally good" for classes based on concept, and that they are willing to compromise character themes, the mechanical/narrative interaction of the game, but never the address the Attribute issues themselves. Hopefully it's going to be something they'll address at some point in the future, probably not until a sequel, but I wouldn't hold my breath. At one point they were also talking about slowly doing away with the "Combat Only" issue with abilities, but last patch, they actually added that limitation to more abilities, not fewer, so, eh, not sure what to expect in the future. They're all over the board at this point.

The short answer to this is "Sawyer". The long answer is slightly more complicated but ends up as a largely indefensible position. The shorter answer is really the easiest and most correct one. Sawyer did not like pre-buffing in the IE games, and therefore there is no pre-buffing whatsoever in PoE. Which I have yet to see any truth in at all. Why would there be problems with one set of buffs, but not other sets of buffs? Food, Rest and Aura buffs persists through saves just fine, but another kind of buff would not? Oh please.

All he said is that over 94% of visitors to the IE mod site are men. Saying that this is not indicative of the target audience of Pillars of Eternity is tantamount to saying that women do play PoE, but are just too dumb to use the IE Mod. I prefer to think that the average woman is just as dumb as the average man. Unless there's any reason specifically men would use the IE Mod, there's no reason to think that the analytics would be off when it comes to PoE itself. Do men mod their games more than women? If so, why? And so on and so forth.