Luckmann

I didn't even know you weren't supposed to rest after every few battles in BG1/2 until i visited this forum. I mean, it seemed logical. Why would my Wizard/Sorc auto-attack? He's not a ranger. Can you show me where this was considered cheating/exploiting? Or is it just your opinion? It's not cheating, it's just silly. The idea that a group of adventurers would camp for 8 hours every 2 hours or so is silly. I don't blame anyone for doing that - the way that game handled casters and didn't penalize rest-spamming, it was indeed the "right" way to play (as in optimal). And I hate that. As I said - it doesn't make any sense that a group of adventurers would rest constantly, and I hate that the game was designed in such a way as to encourage that. So along comes PoE, and simultaneously gives wizards a little more to do outside of spellslinging while discouraging rest-spamming by making you trot all the way back to an inn if you want to do so. It's great. I've been playing on Hard, and I just cleared the Eothas temple with 5 people (pre-Caed-Nua companions, no adventurer) at level 3. It certainly wasn't easy, but I was able to do the whole dungeon without having to leave (even though the inn was right outside). Made it just fine with the 2 wood I brought and the 1 I found in the dungeon. As I said - your perceived need to rest is directly dependent on how you do in battles. If you play a bit more tactically and conserve spells, you can do without rest-spamming. The game is quite well balanced on Hard. It is entirely possible to go through the entire Temple of Eothas on release, with only resting once, at level 3, assuming you have 5 party members (you, 3 CNPC:s, and 1 inn-muppet). I really don't see what people are complaining about, I fully agree with what you say and I think it's amazing that I'm actually feeling the attrition in PoE, something I thought was always functionally absent in the IE games, even if you didn't "rest-spam". This is another one of those cases where I must say I don't agree with everything PoE did in the way it did it, but the rest system is pretty much spot-on. I still haven't figured out how the inn bonuses are supposed to work (sometimes I have them disappear on random characters, and at most times they persist through resting with camp supplies, it's... odd, and might be a bug). I would not mind more survival-based things (need to eat, need to drink, more wilderness areas, main areas further apart so you really feel the trek, etc; I don't think it's reasonable to walk Gilded Vale to Defiance Bay without even setting up camp to rest once - in the IE games I always handwaved it as you taking breaks and setting up camp as you travelled, but here, you have a measurement of how many times you've rested, and it's never consumed except on expressly camping. But PoE is pretty damn good. You mean certain attributes being ignorable/dumps, others being mandatory? I'd like to try Perception as Accuracy again, since I wasnt a beta tester. But apparently that made it a must-have stat as well. And Im told that since it once governed bonus accuracy, Sagani for instance has alot more than usual and her stats werent changed after that nerf pre-release. Perception used to give +2 Accuracy, in a time when Accuracy was actually bugged (or rather, damage stacking and the combat resolution math was bugged, so Accuracy was extremely valuable). When they changed it in BBv435, they not only fixed the bugs/math, but they also removed Accuracy from the Attributes system entirely based on testing that was by then no longer relevant; BBv435 also had such extreme issues with the Attributes that it couldn't reliably be tested by beta testers at all (Dexterity worked in reverse and Interrupt as a mechanic was broken, so you could easily stunlock anything with a single character with high enough +Interrupt). Then came BBv480 and then release followed, practically immediately, and the Attribute bonuses from BBv435 was kept. I have a suggested Attribute spread that I keep harping on, which involves giving +1 Accuracy to Perception. Even if you completely max it out, that's only +10 Accuracy (with 20 Perception). I don't think that's unreasonable at all, and would actually make Perception worthwile for non-tanks. On the flipside, I'm no longer convinced my own suggestion is the end-all be-all (I never really were) and I'm going to re-evaluate my suggestions in a few days. But either way, the current system is just whack. Like you say, Sagani has high Perception, despite her benefitting very little from it. The same goes for Aloth, to whom Perception is complete and utter dead weight. Yes, you shouldn't expect CNPC:s to have min/maxed attributes, but in a system like this, I would expect the Attributes to be balanced - which is the core of the issue. The issue isn't really that Aloth has bad Attributes, it's that the Attributes he has are bad for him. And they shouldn't be. Aloth (or Sagani) shouldn't have their Attributes changed. They make sense, thematically. What needs work are the Attributes themselves.

Two things immediately stand out to me: No fixes to Attributes, which practially everyone has realized are lopsided as all hell. This was pointed out by a lot of beta testers before release, but have since been mentioned time and time again by newly arrived noobs players. Devs have mentioned that they wanted to do away with the ridiculous "Combat Only"-mechanic, but despite it already serving no reasonable function in a lot of cases (Zealous Charge comes to mind; whereas Zealous Focus, widely recognized as superior, isn't restricted at all), now even more "Combat Only" restrictions are patched in, instead of the other way around. What gives? I can thematically understand the change to Chill Fog, but Slicken being a single-hit AoE is just utter nonsense. Wizards were already acknowledged to be wildly inferior to Druids and Priests, and now I really don't see any reason to take one, let alone take poor Aloth, aside from story/roleplay reasons; a gimped wizard with a gimped set of Attributes, with gimpy spells. Slicken definitely should be a Hazard AoE. I have no idea what they were thinking. And if Chill Fog is changed to AoE from Foe AoE (...they really should rename "AoE" into something like "All AoE" or "Friendly-Fire AoE" to fit the format...) it should be considerably buffed in some other way, such as being much larger, or do more damage. That never was a bug, just an unclear description. IIRC the description has been fixed, not sure about that though. Check the notes. While it makes sense, it is really unintuitive, though. Especially since you don't seem to be able to stack DoT:s of the same kind (I think; it might be a tooltip issue with the duration/dmg not showing the stacking, but I doubt it), adding length to your DoT without adding damage is a straight-up double-nerf. First because it takes longer to do the same damage as before, and second because you can't re-apply the same debuff before the last one has run it's course. AFAIK. But yes, the DoT info could really be a lot clearer.

When I get home on Monday/Tuesday, I'll check. **** no. I want my save games for a reason, otherwise I'd just be one of those muppets that depends on a single quicksave. That said, it's absolutely awful that we can't name saves.

That just means you are producing a clone item, it is still based on the cloth_outfit_dyrwoodan base item.

Also, the way I understood it, Maerwald's insanity stemmed from the relation between two (or three) very specific incarnations before himself. He didn't seem to be insane on a spectrum, it really seemed to be a near-unique circumstance. So defaulting to "I have to stop this, it is a curse" is.. odd. I also felt that you are unduly forced to treat the Leaden Key as opponents, starting already in the Catacombs. They haven't actually tried to hurt me yet, yet I can't even attempt to speak to them. I either sneak in there by guile (which doesn't necessarily make that much sense) or go in guns blazing (which makes even less sense based on what you know at that point). How about... "Hey, I saw some of you do something and now.. uhm.. I see dead people. Help?". If at that point they attacked you, fair enough, the plot thickens, etc, but I think they are made out as bad guys too early.

The best thing about Durance is that he's not just quirky, he doesn't just have a schtick or is a thematic one-trick-pony. He's genuinely damaged and arguably crazy. And hilariously, unapologetically patriarchal. Because **** everyone you're wrong because fire. Almost everyone else seem to have some theme or a thing, but Durance (and Edér, I think) really feel like real people.

What's the command for that? And either way... there should still be an in-game wait command, really.

I was going to make one, with all the appropriate titles of the items and the codes for each, but I didn't have time and now I'm in Germany until Monday. Unless someone else does it, I'll get one up on Tueday or so. Some of them are up as pictures on the Wiki.

Well then a cookie to you for Edér. I really like Edér, a truly down-to-Earth character that doesn't feel like he's there to make some odd point or have a schtick. Other than that, Avellone should write more characters. Just.. more. No, have him write like 18. Grieving Mother is psychadelic and Durance is bloody amazing. Hiravias is.. what little I've seen, hilarious. But either way, there's some real great characters here. Great, great job.

For optimization, sure. But I'm using a Might/Con based low-Int barbarian for my off tank and it's working just fine. "Working" does not mean "Balanced". I still do not understand why that is so hard to understand. Yes. TF but my character dramatically sticks one arm straight out to fire them. Go home Pillars, you're drunk. There's a reason for that. They are early flintlock-like blackpowder weapons. Not only was the double-grip not "invented" in the time that inspired PoE, but you really, really do not want to have that near your face when it goes off. There is also no sight to aim through; frankly, the aim was terrible. It was not uncommmon to miss at what you today would probably consider pretty much point-blank range. The one-hand straight-arm thin-frame aiming technique for one-handed firearms was common up to and including WW2, sometimes onward. What is more notable is the lack of the large-ass smokescreens these things drops when fired. If you fire several arquebuses (arquebi?) after eachother (or anything with blackpowder, really) it's going to result in near-zero visibility.

Really? Are you sure? Note that if you use it, it disappears, so if you opened Purnisc's door, you can't try it on other doors. You have to lockpick the door, then pick up the key, finish the quest, and then go to the other doors. But yes, it's entirely possible the other keys are also called Rusty Bronze Key, and that's the issue. I'm not sure how the game assigns or sorts those things.

I constantly run into bugs and I really hate this kind of sentiment. Just because you don't have a problem doesn't mean that the game isn't broken. I can sell you a car without brakes, but you'll never notice, because you never brake; does that change anything for the guy that drove straight into traffic? Does it make my act of selling the car somehow OK? As someone that *really* often run into a gazillion bugs in games, some game-breaking, some not, there's few things that infuriate me more than "The game works for me, so the game is fine, you're just whiny" or "It doesn't crash for me, so it must be your computer, get a new one lol". Whether the OP is "offended" or whatever, I honestly don't care that much, but his points are valid and his complaint genuine. I would personally be furious if I ran into a game-breaking bug, especially if the cause was unclear or happened hours upon hours in the past.

My suggestion is "whenever you have at least 5 party members". Whether that's level 3 or 5 depends on a lot of factors, but if your objective is to do it as quick as possible: I personally did it at level 3, I think.

Honestly, if we assume my own suggested Attribute bonuses, with +1 Accuracy on Perception, even during absolutely optimal conditions, we're only talking about +10 Accuracy. Whilst good, that'd be at the expense of other stats; what's best, a blanket +3% Dmg/Heal (and some Interrupt, in my spread) or +1 Accuracy? I'd say it depends on your build (fast weapons? Accuracy for more crits / slow weapons? +Dmg/Heal for heavy stabs).

Basically, any attack is decided by a roll of your Accuracy vs. the defences of the opponent. The game rolls a 1d100 and works out the difference. So the higher your Accuracy, the more you will hit, the less of these hits will be grazes, and the more of them will be criticals. As has been mentioned, no base stat or Attribute raises Accuracy; a decision I question, but fair enough. So any effects you can get that gives you +Accuracy contributes. This will mostly be gear (primarily weapons) and some (mostly caster-specific) spells.

Honestly, as far as these kind of games go, PoE is actually holding up really nicely. And I mean *really* nicely. Yes, there's bugs, but come on.

Alright, so something is seriously screwed with how this key works. Is it a veritable skeleton-key?

It does not. You can only choose order on creation, and the ChangeClass command does not take you back to creation, it just resets your level to 1.

A few things: No, there is no penalty to using a shield as a wizard. No recovery penalty or spell casting penalty of any kind. With most shields, you lose Accuracy, which is very valuable for wizards (and other spellcasters) because it is very hard for them to gain +Accuracy on their spells. Wizards are pathetic in melee. No ifs or buts of whens or whatevers. They're terrible. All ranged weapons are two-handed, for some really odd, likely "balance" (sic) reason. But yeah, you could use a shield, no problems. The game has some issues with things, but the way it's built, so open, is really good.

Actually, scratch that. They just look completely different depending on whether it's male or female, for some arbitrary and completely asinine reason. This brings back memories of Wasteland 2 again... =_= Teh womyn get at least 70% fancier clothing. Especially cloth_outfit_dyrwoodan_vest stands out as being "filthy open-chest field hand" for men and "upper-class merchant-lady" or "clan matriarch" for women.

When I launch the game, the game needs at least several minutes to just read in the save games, before I can even attempt to load them. Then when I load them, it's actually much faster. What is the game even doing when it's loading up those save games? It shouldn't even be reading save games that I'm not specifically telling it to load. It's taking longer to "Loading Save Games" than it takes to launch the game or actually loading save games.

Actually, I checked, and it's been replaced by this monstrosity: To bad, because there seems to be nothing in the game even resembling noble's clothing.

...you can't enchant cloaks, Karkarov. You can only enchant chest pieces and weapons.

Anyone that's actually found the Dyrwood clothing (#3) in the game? I'm starting to despair.

No. Again, Mechanics determines everything.