Luckmann

But then I have to ask you exactly what you actually played, because even disregarding party members (for whatever reason), almost everyone has legit ways to deal with wizards and protection spells. Archers get Arrows of Dispelling, Paladins have Carsomyr, and Assassins simply go up and stab them in the face before they even become an issue. The only "issue" with how spells/counterspelling worked in BG2 was that it could be hard to figure out which protections were up and what you needed to use to dispel it. But even so, just throwing what feels appropriate (which I do, because I can't be arsed to figure out exactly what does exactly what against what, even 10 years down the line) you can just sorta half-ass your way through the game when it comes to mages. Honestly the vast majority of mages I simply swarm and beat on them until they die, this is true all the way up until they get Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting. This isn't because I can't do better, but simply because it's the best solution. One day I'm really going to play the game as a Wizard Slayer/Thief just to see how hard I can wreck the opposition. I'm in Throne of Bhaal with my Assassin run at the moment, and Viconia has 110 Magic Resistance. I mean. C'mon.

Like I said, I understand why, I'm just sad to see the mechanic go. Maybe the DoT should've scaled off of damage inflicted, and thus be affected by general damage modifiers, then it'd be a "simple" matter of balancing the numbers?

I understand why they did it, but I'm still really sad to see the DoT on Sabres go. It set them apart and made them interesting compared to other swords, thematically fitting.

Torment didn't have romances. That.. arguably has to do with what one considers a "romance". It definitely had some potential romantic tension, but nothing I would consider a romance as it has come to be in games that underlines romances as some kind of ridiculous "feature".

My favourite game by far is Planescape: Torment, but saying that that was because the IE combat was bad but the storytelling carried it is poppy****. The PS:T combat was ass all on it's own, by comparison to the other IE games, and there's a huge amount of people that in no way consider PS:T the best IE game; many go so far as to call it an interactive book, which I don't agree with, but the criticism is still apt. The IE game generally considered the best is without a doubt BG2. That is something I also do not necessarily agree with (BG1 had better characters, better storytelling and better overall pacing) but it is definitely understandable, precisely because the combat in BG2 is quite good, and the in-combat pacing is great. PS:T has rubbish combat by comparison (although I still really enjoy it) and BG1 suffers from a lack of options in that department. Best of all worlds? I'd kill for something with the storytelling, scope and pacing of BG1, the storyline and atmosphere of PS:T, and the combat/character growth/options of BG2.

Shouldn't be much of a problem, if you turn down the difficulty.

Personally, I always hated Lilarcor, the Sentient Blade. However, it did occur to me that other possibly sentient swords could actually be cool, dropping comments in combat. And in the world of Pillars of Eternity, with the themes presented and the way souls work, you could arguably "simply" have it be a matter of an animated sword, as in a Vessel imbued with a Soul through Animancy.

In the current rules, speaking strictly mechanically, they would probably stack. It is a moot point, however, since there are no Weapon Focus Talents that overlap. This being said, I hope that there will be Weapon Focus Talents that do overlap, and they shouldn't stack.

Yeah. THIS. And...not anything else you've said on this thread. The fact of the matter is that when it comes to CRPGs, the broader the target audience, the more limited and watered down the RPG will be. And must be. Because average gamers don't like to read, don't like to focus on anything beyond the visual, don't like rule set complexity, and most importantly they won't be entertained by gameplay that is designed to be more of a cerebral experience than an adrenaline rush. We all want PoE to be as financially successful as possible. But there's a huge difference between wishing that the game does well, and wishing that it be designed to target the mainstream masses so that it sells a bajillion copies, like Mass Effect and Skyrim and other large-target-audience-RPGs. And this is precisely why I look at this Angry Joe Preview and rejoice. He might help this game sell well despite it not being targeted/designed towards his core viewership. I really don't have anything else to say on the topic that hasn't already been said by these two posts, but since I was targeted, I think it's only appropriate that I quote them for truth. Why would this be a problem? There are averages of everything, and it's defined by being average. This is literally what the word means and how we use it. And the most common way to appeal to the common peasant is by finding the lowest common denominator that ties the average gamers together, and push it. This is why people eat McDonalds, despite all of these average Joes knowing that McDonalds is terrible and McDonalds barely qualifying as food; because when it comes to it, the average has the lowest common denominator of enjoying fat, sugar, and salt. So to appeal to the average, you reduce it all to fat, sugar, and salt. There's a key demographic that enjoys ruccola? Tough ****. Pineapple in burgers? Don't be ridiculous, that's not cost-effective. And the gaming industry has truly turned into a churning industry of feel-good manure, shuffling slop for the troughs, all the way from programmer-farms in a corporate basement to the legions of facebook housewives everywhere and the new generation of self-professed-"nerd" airheads. In order to appeal to the average gamer - or the average anything - quality will always be compromised. Anything quality will always be niche, if for no other reason than the subjective nature of appeal, and any culture worth it's salt will be naturally insular and selective, or it will fall victim to it's own dismantling. I realize it sounds hyperbolic, but console peasantry and mass appeal has all but ruined PC Gaming irrevocably, and up until very recently, some of us have endured nothing short of a decade-long dark age.

It's not really a "personal issue with consoles"; console "gamers" and the console platform has been poisoning PC gaming for over a decade, and Ruzen is hardly alone in the sentiment. The fact that someone favours consoles (and therefore favours console gameplay) definitely warrants ignoring their opinion and all their input should be treated as suspect, at best.

My thought, too. I can see him thinking the game is something it's not, and then chainsawing the game by it's ankles come release. What little I've seen of him, he seems like a loudmouthed knuckledragger exemplifying the non-gamer gamer generation of self-appointed "nerds", the douchiest of the douchiest.

While it's nice to see good publicity, I can't muster enough care to.. care.

I sure would hope not. I'd be extremely surprised if.

False dichotomy. The fact that it is possible to exploit something and thus ruin it doesn't have anything to do with whether or not that something is inherently flawed or not. Removing the ability to perform something completely reasonable, such as attempting to escape from combat, on the basis that it could arguably possibly be used to the cheapen gameplay in a way that is not intended, is utterly unreasonable. It is akin to saying that because Rocket-Jumping could be abused in FPS Game X, you should remove jumping, or remove rocket-launchers, or else you think that Rocket-Jumping, an exploit that cheapens intended gameplay, is "good". It's false dichotomy. Not only are there far more reasonable solutions possible, but it is only an issue for those that abuse it. I've played the IE games since BG1 was first released. Never once have I ever resorted to the run-rest-return-run-rest-return "exploit". It is a veritable non-issue to begin with, and invented issue that destroys gameplay for the numbnuts that decides to engage in it. Why should gameplay be cheapened for all those that choose not to do this? As I have said before, it is like arguing that the console should be removed because you can use it to cheat. Cheater's gonna cheat, but we still leave console functions in for those that use it legitimately, and let the user decide how to use or abuse it.

For me, Septerra Core's the one to beat. Which shouldn't be too difficult, that game had issues. Of course Baldur's Gate 2 stands out to me for being unintuitive to the point of impenetrability. I only figured out that lower armour scores are better because it wouldn't make sense for leather to offer more protection than steel. And if a spell wasn't either "this does damage" or "this heals" then I just couldn't figure out why I would even want it. Sure, I probably could figure it all out if I wanted to put in the effort, but I don't want to put in a lot of effort to just grasp the basics of a system. And yet you learned English!? The king of unintuitive convoluted Latin languages? (assumption that located in the Netherlands means you are Dutch). I personally suggest that it is worth the effort, also, detailed spellcasting is not the "basics of the system" but rather the complicated nightmare that adds to the wonderful plethora of tactical possibilities :D I've been watching cartoons and playing videogames since I was a kid. When you're that young, learning new languages is still sort of easy. You just kind of absorb that stuff. Civilization was especially helpful in expanding my burgeoning vocabulary. Which is why I think it's such a shame cartoons these days get dubbed over. I attribute my English to Beneath a Steel Sky and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.

I fixed it.

Well someone's gon' lose a hat.

That's how you dealt with Gromnir? That's kinda sad. It's not even a combat flaw. It's you abusing other "issues" with the game ("issues" only because a fraction of the player-base decided to cheese and cheat their way through the game; by that logic, I can use the console to activate Godmode in PoE, and then complain that the combat is bad).

1) I have no idea what you are talking about when it comes to wizard encounters and "Immunity to X" and "Cast counterspell". 2) Epic-level IE combat is not the greatest thing since sliced bread, and I personally enjoy lower-level play, but Epic-level IE combat wasn't bad for the reasons you state. The Underdark is pretty far from Epic-level play, and I have no idea what you mean by "cheese-fest". Did you cheese your way through it? Or do you mean that the enemies were cheesy? 3) Sarcasm. Not irony. 4) Except you can't go around the melee defenders to get the mage.

What ? No inter-buddies fights ? Is this official ? There's only 8 CNPC:s. There's not a lot of wiggle-room for.. well.. anything.

Wrong section, this does not relate to Pillars of Eternity General.

Yeah, the combat in the IE games was actually great.

It's really not. Of course summons shouldn't simply disappear from one split-second to the next.

Does "suppressed" means you get a reduced bonus, or non? Basically, it's similar to the D&D system of only having the highest bonus apply, except they call it Suppressed and list it so you can see what's going on at a glance.