Luckmann

How would you even *begin* to create custom *campaigns*? Like what?

Is this another one of those "I don't know what words means so I'll accuse people of using words wrong"-things of yours, Strawnir? Because I think we grew tired of those about 6 months ago.

Maybe it is just my imagination, but I am pretty sure Sagani's wolf is leaping up to bite Eder. It seemed obvious to me that Itumaak was asking to be pet in that scene. You probably fall for the cat belly trap too, every time. Every. Friggin'. Time. That goddamn bite/rake attack. Natural weapons are freakin' overpowered.

What does he mean by a laborious/time-consuming process? It's likely hyperbole, referring to the time it takes to go through the motions of levelling a character from 1 to 3 or 10 or 14 or whatever.

Mostly, I stick it in my mouth, and then I chew it.

True. But you know what would be cool? There are three "wandering" companions in the game who are just sort of not specifically caring about where they currently are in the game when you run into them - Aloth, Grieving Mother, and Hiravias (I mean, they have stuff they want to do and all, but the place where you meet them isn't nearly as critical to their stories as far as I can tell unlike say Durance, who pretty much needs to be standing by that statue of Magran, or Eder who needs to be by the hanging tree). A cool little feature would be that these three characters are seeded to spawn in each other's spots differently every time you start the game. So if you start a new game you might find Hiravias in Gilded Vale getting harassed by townies, Aloth in Dyrwood Village, and Grieving mother out on the road in Stormwall Gorge, or Grieving mother in Gilded Vale getting harassed, Aloth in Dyrwood Village and Hiravias in Stormwall Gorge, or any of the combinations of these instances. Considering they're all to some degree or another, offensive casters, they kind of all fulfill a similar party role. And since the game keeps companion characters roughly near the player's level, it really doesn't matter (gameplay progression/balance wise) what order you run into them. I dunno, something like this could be a neat little mix-up thing for players playing the game again. Obviously not critical at all or anything, but a neat little touch. I would take that another step, actually - I don't see the reason why they need to be in eachother's spots. For example, while Grieving Mother might make sense to be in Aloth's spot and maybe vice-versa (although Aloth's dialogue would have to be a bit rewritten, nothing major) doing so with Hiravias might not make as much sense. Honestly, create a number of seed points for all/most of the characters, some which are shared, and if they both happen to get seeded to the same spot, have one of them just re-seed. Even "set" characters like Edér or Pallegina could have a small number of spots they could be in, in roughly the same area. Sure, in Edér's or Durance's case, it might involve moving him 5-10 meters in any direction, but it would still be cool.

Can't say I disagree with the latter, but damn, that respec. The worst thing is that once it's done, it's done forever, and is unlikely to ever go away, come sequels or expansions. Casuals tend to throw a fit if you take their toys away once given. But at least we'll never have to replay the game again. The choice of race and class has practically no effect in the narrative, and with respecs, we can just change our character to get all the options in every dialogue. So there's that. If the replay value was small before, it's virtually nil now.

It's most noticeable in the prologue, where it's really easy to notice what you're facing. I've had games on Hard that for some reason started spawning the number of enemies from Easy. I think changing the difficulty to Easy and then back to Hard should solve it, but obviously the encounters for the maps you've already been on is already set.

This might be the tenth or fifteenth bug report on this matter, dating back to early April. If this were easily fixable, they'd have done it by now. Easily fixable things have been ignored for just as long. I think it's just a matter of priority. For whatever reason, this just seems to be extremely low on the list of priorities. And based on what other things we've seen fixed and other things that have been similarly ignored, I wonder just how they prioritize.

I think it's the belief that it'll be under-utilized. I think PoE has lost much of the momentum it had in terms of modding potential, and I question the use of a modding sub-forum. However, at the same time, I do agree - even if it would be under-utilized, there's no real harm in it, and if there's going to be any chance for a base to build on, there's no better place to start than here.

I doubt he'd share it if it wasn't decided that it's in, though.

well, it is possible for the least liked and most beloved character lists to be identical. durance and grieving mother, as examples, would appear to be polarizing characters-- folks like or hate. HA! Good Fun! I was just thinking the same thing. After all, the polls aren't rankings, they're just single votes for or against. Edér seems to be liked by everyone or at least not hated by anyone and loved by many, but Durance is hated and loved in equal measure, likely both, by some people.

given the depth and breadth o' changes that is arriving with 2.0, this is a welcome improvement that maintains the integrity o' poe as a role-play game. we will not need have our player concept invalidated 'cause o' developer whim or error. have us need restart to maintain role-play or gameplay continuity, regardless o' the fact that we invested +40 hours into the game? as between burdening the developers so that they need add a respec feature, or burdening the player who has invested tens of hours into the game, am thinking the choice is obvious. good move by obsidian. HA! Good Fun! If that was the goal, a one-time respec upon loading a pre-2.0 save would've served. This doesn't maintain the integrity of PoE as a roleplaying game, it undermines it. Roleplaying games are about choices made, including the development of the character(s). There's no reason it should be exempt and the game allow you to yo-yo your character any more than the game should allow you to take back decisions made as part of the storyline or in quests. From that picture it is difficult to say how many times player can respec/retrain one character. True, but from it's placement I think it's fair to say that it's "in-universe". Once or twice or prohbiatively expensive doesn't really matter at that point.

given the depth and breadth o' changes that is arriving with 2.0, this is a welcome improvement that maintains the integrity o' poe as a role-play game. we will not need have our player concept invalidated 'cause o' developer whim or error. have us need restart to maintain role-play or gameplay continuity, regardless o' the fact that we invested +40 hours into the game? as between burdening the developers so that they need add a respec feature, or burdening the player who has invested tens of hours into the game, am thinking the choice is obvious. good move by obsidian. HA! Good Fun! If that was the goal, a one-time respec upon loading a pre-2.0 save would've served. This doesn't maintain the integrity of PoE as a roleplaying game, it undermines it. Roleplaying games are about choices made, including the development of the character(s). There's no reason it should be exempt and the game allow you to yo-yo your character any more than the game should allow you to take back decisions made as part of the storyline or in quests. And so PoE slides deeper into mediocrity. :| I don't think it's bad, myself. During my second play through I had my character wield a two-hander for most of the game, only to decide near the end of the game that I actually wanted the Red Knight. I had to cheat to respec my character so I could do that (not that I particularly mind cheating; having a respec button is simply quicker and more convenient.) My problem would be if they only did this (i.e. implement a respec button) and nothing to fix other issues (first and foremost, dumb A.I. which generates in turn the vast majority of the most pressing issues with the game; the Attribute System that heavily favors min/maxing; several game mechanics not working as advertised or intended; the absence of bracketed scaling for the critical path; etc.) It is my impression that 2.0 will fix several bugs and at least try to fix the Attribute System, as well as bring a few small improvements to the A.I. to the table—which would be a good start If anything, it'll serve as an excuse for not fixing issues to begin with, in the same manner how they changed the CNPC:s instead of fixing the known issue of the Attribute Bonuses. Oh, X doesn't work? Use something else, and ignore fixing it. There's a difference between cheating and having something built in as "quicker and more convenient". The game has already suffered a lot in the name of convenience, and the difference between cheating and this is that cheating is not intended; adding a respec option suggests that it's intended to be used. It becomes a part of the game. It is like adding a button called "Give Gold", because it is more convenient than using the console command to cheat.

Baldur's Gate 2 tends to get a lot of praise, but I always preferred Baldur's Gate in every way except mechanically. And this includes the music. Damn I love that tune. That said, I do really like the music for PoE, for the most part, but I can agree that it doesn't exactly get you stoked. Design in BG tends to be rather bland. The City of Baldurs Gate was a inconsistend and thoughtless mess. "Hey guys, let's throw all things medieval and ancient in the mix!" Bland, maybe, but I kinda liked that. It felt more down to earth and not so out there. I think the "mess" of Baldur's Gate was actually deliberate, a messy big city as a contrast to the very "normal" towns you'd been in previous. And it was still endlessly better than the mess that was Athkatla.

And so PoE slides deeper into mediocrity. :|

Statlines > Point Buy. No exceptions.

Yeah, let's keep saying "Why the hell does it work that way" and maybe, just maybe, a dev will read it and pass it on and it'll be changed . Actually, I stumbled across this just now: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/80676-kana-chants-turn-off-enchanted-objects-is-this-suppose-to-happen/ Apparently it's a confirmed bug and it's been fixed internally, so come 2.0, Chants should no longer count as Equipment.

That's one hell of a necro. There's a long-standing bug relating to difficulty and the number of placed opponents. You probably ran into that one, because Normal should not have been nerfed in 1.06, afaik. The bug has been hard to pin down and was still around as late as 1.05, and I'm not sure if they've managed to resolve it yet.

There's a lot of things I'm interested in, and that I'll probably not hear about, but that doesn't mean that it should be posted here just so I do. Me wanting to hear about it has nothing to do with whether this is the appropriate place or not. I want to hear heavy metal every day. The hospital nursery is not the right place.

The integral part of a roleplaying game you're alluding to is not to choose your race, but to choose your character, and if that choice does not matter beyond the statistics, if it is just a reskin of a human, narratively speaking, then it is a moot choice, roleplaying-wise. Race matters. But not just because it's just another mechanical choice, it matters in the narrative, or should matter, at least. I appreciate much of what PoE tried to do, making distinct cultures, but in doing so, it seems to have purposefully largely ignored the racial or ethnic factors. I'm completely onboard with throwing the old "All elves are this, and they're exactly like this, and they're a culturally distinct and largely culturally homogeneous people that revolve around tropes A, B, and C." I get that. I like that. But like I said earlier, one thing does not exclude the other. You can have both interesting and distinct races or species that interact in a variety of ways. What we have now feels more like exactly what I said before, except replace "Elves" with any of the major cultures, and randomly switch the races of character's around. Hyperbole, maybe; there are *some* situations where the issue of race does boil up (Orlans, when it's convenient, comes to mind). But by and large. I do hope that both the races and cultures become increasingly distinct in future instalments, as time passes. The sheer degree of multiracialism exhibited by the various cultures is rather jarring, honestly. Or at least tends to be, at times. It's like some global hippie commune playing out in an otherwise grim world of relatively selfish groups seeing to their own interests in every way, except, for some reason, ethnically. Even the long-standing issue of orlan slavery and them being considered lesser beings by many is somehow lost in all of this. On the Free Palatinate of Dyrwood has been said that "Although slavery is no longer legal in the Dyrwood, many Glanfathan orlans and a few elves still work/serve in a state that is little better than slavery.". This is a potential source of very real racial tension, and the Dyrwood only recently left the practice of slavery behind, yet this comes across.. not at all. At least the Glanfathan tribes appears to be split up somewhat along racial lines, which is interesting, and makes sense, especially since races can't produce offspring. The northernmost Glanfathan tribes (or a Glanfathan tribe, I forget which) up towards White March supposedly consists of dwarves, and I think that the Fisher Crane tribe was mostly Orlans (but I can be mistaken). This makes sense, making the tribes migratory "nations" or states within a loose federation of sorts. That's interesting to me. Hopefully we'll just see the races more fleshed out in the future, instead of being "human reskins", which is ultimately what I think was trying to be avoided; the trope of all dwarves being drunk scotsmen that enjoys holes in the ground. But I think they shyed away from racial characteristics on the personal/inner attributes level far too much. Their instincts or racial characteristics needs to be enhanced in the narrative, if not so much as to override the individual characters.

The problem really is that the system favours muscle-wizards so heavily - Intellect as a consolidated spellcaster attribute leaves a lot of room for extra points, and Might is the attribute that entirely favours nuking. The optimized path is clear. That, together with the fact that Might - no matter it's description or intended use as a general characteristic relating to spiritual power as much as physical - is practically Strength for all intents and purposes, means muscle-wizards. And I don't think muscle wizards are wrong. I'm fine with that. What grinds my gears is that it's so easy to min/max, and the atypical muscle-wizard somehow became the default of Pillars of Eternity, supported in dialogue as the wall-breaking, kid-lifting and physically intimidating meathead lead of the group. If Perception will boost Accuracy, and the caster-bonuses be split up into Intellect and Resolve (Intellect +Duration/Resolve +AoE), the muscle-wizard will just be another way to build a good caster, instead of the given, and there will be no obvious dump stat, either.

Nah, he'll take Sweden first, giving you time to get your bratwursts in order. Official projection is that Sweden would fall within 48 hours. GG.

Spell and Ability Bonuses should always stack with Equipment Bonuses, so Reinforcing Exhortation should work with your equipment. I have no idea why bonuses from Chants would be considered Equipment Bonuses. I don't doubt that they do, I trust Nobear and Boeroer, I just ask myself why the hell they do.

Instead of telling us what you don't have, it might be helpful to know what you do have.