IanTheWizard

Thanks for the data, but it's factually incorrect. 🙂 POE1 contains lesbian relationships (between female NPCs) and a certain kind of propaganda in the character creation screen. Fortunately, those content make up just a tiny bit percentage, so I didn't bring them up.

Finally, I finished the game. Considering the ending indicates that the story is clearly unfinished, I would like to humbly present my two cents, which could probably help a potential POE3 receive and sell a little bit better. Praises New Elements in RPG I think it's admirable that the devs have been letting players see new elements in their RPGs in order for the players to always have new things to try out. In POE1, we have the construction and upgrading about the Caed Nua stronghold; in POE2, we have the voyage, ship management, and ship combat. It seems to have been a tradition in Obsidian Entertainment's RPGs since Neverwinter Nights 2. Although I'm not a fan of the "Spirit Energy" system in Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, I admire the devs' effort in bringing a new element to the game all the same. Also, in this game, when we are on our way from a region to another region in a city (e.g. Neketaka), we sometimes run into a random event. That's also an innovative and fun design in my opinion. This innovative tradition really worth keeping up so that players can see that RPGs can be more than just plain story and quests doing. Surprising Detailed Designs In a previous thread, I talked about my experience of completing a quest which I thought I wouldn't have a chance. And later after I took a seemingly insignificant action, I was able to complete the quest. In short, initiating a battle with a ship without firm evidence of their crimes is not my cup of tea, and I thought I probably had to give up that quest. But after I put up a different flag on my ship, the target ship came to attack me, exposing they were really criminal. I was surprised that the design is so detailed that it offers players an alternative way to complete a quest. The design is very helpful, especially for players who value their moral choices. Whoever came up with the idea really deserves a kudos! Advice Let Controversial Ideologies Stay in Real Life The ideology in this case is feminism. In the game, we keep seeing high-standing or role-reversing female NPCs. Female gang leader, female captain, matriarch, female monarch, female warrior leader, female admiral, female chieftain, female scientist, female weapon smith, female weapon vendor, formidable retired bounty huntress, brave little girl, Berath manifests as a goddess -- you name it. Even the story narrator is female. On the contrary, the counterpart male NPCs are noticeably less in number. Through out the course of the game, we meet those female figures one after another. The marketing is so obvious that I felt it became a bit pushy and contrived. There is a reason that POE2 sold less than POE1. Please understand that the majority target audience of classic RPGs are male, and the said ideology is not likely to be preferable to a large number of them. If you would still implement feminism in your future projects, I hope you could make it optional so that players can make their own choices. Incidentally, we know that D&D has been promoting this kind of ideologies, and I really find it regrettable that POE did not seize the opportunity to differentiate itself from D&D in this respect. Respect Players' Choice of Companions In POE1, there were some recruitable companions who I didn't recruit and White March NPCs who I have never seen before. However, when they meet me in POE2, their dialogs blatantly said or implied that we traveled together or have met each other in the past. It's disappointing that the game did not respect my choices in POE1. Precisely speaking, I felt like a non-existent story was imposed on me. Of all such characters, only one's dialog allowed me to thoroughly deny any connection with him (He is from White March, according to the wiki). The rest's dialogs simply force me to choose options to say something like I recognize them ... blah blah blah. Also, at the end when the narrator is concluding my journey, one of the scenes mentioned my companions and the screen showed all recruitable companions standing together on my ship. However, I only recruited Eder and Aloth, so it makes no sense that other recruitable companions showed up on my ship in that screen. In fact, one of them (the Rauatai ranger) had already been killed by me for joining force with her superior in trying to murder me because I refused their shocking proposal against the Huana queen. Had my choices were respected, I would have felt less disconnected from the story. This is definitely something worth working around to make players enjoy the game more. Avoid Reusing the Voice of a Voice Actor or Actress Actually, this issue already existed and was more prominent in POE1. That is, the voice of Eder's voice actor was reused for many male NPCs. It sounds awkward and embarrassing. Yes, embarrassing. When that happened to me for the first time, I was like why on earth am I hearing Eder's voice from the NPC in front of me when Eder is in my group behind me. Although some of them have a bit different intonation, you can still make out it's the same voice actor of Eder's. I still remembered a quite funny situation in POE1 that 3 or 4 of my party members all shared the same voice of Eder's voice actor, and when one of them in a combat said something like "the weapon's not working" I couldn't tell who said it. In POE2, the male part is less prominent, but still persists. For example, you can still tell that Eothas' voice is Eder's voice. I also noticed that a voice actress' voice is reused frequently through out the game for many female NPCs. Judging from the fundraising for POE, I guess it's not difficult to hire a few more voice actors and actresses, unless there is something I miss. So this issue is one that worth looking into as it can affect the quality of a game, in my opinion. ------------------------------ And that's all for now. Thanks for your time.

I originally decided to side with the Rauatai because the Huana queen's proposal went beyond my bottom line. But I eventually sided with the Huana because I later found that the Rauatai's proposal was more absurd. Regarding the watershapers exploiting a dragon, only the watershaper guild knew that secret as far as I know, and the rest of the Huana were totally unaware of that. Although the Huana's caste system is not good, it can be improved. For example, there is a quest letting you convince the Huana prince to distribute more food to the Roparu. Overall, I hardly think the Huana are the worst. In fact, they can be reasoned with most of the time. At the very least, they don't rob and plunder other people's ships like the pirates do, do they?

Thank you. The description of Arcane Reflection should have been clearer about that. I'm going add such a note on the wiki.

I'm currently at the final fight of the Forgotten Sanctum. When I saw a Soul Mirror was about to unleash Minoletta's Missile Salvo on my wizard, I had him casted Arcane Reflection in time. But that didn't work at all. None of the missiles was reflected. My wizard died and the Soul Mirror was still unharmed. Is that a bug?

It become okay after reloading. A bug, obviously. Probably something during the battle triggered that.

I'm currently at the final fight of the Forgotten Sanctum. I commanded Eder and Aloth to drink healing potions during the fight, but that wasn't working at all. Although they made the visual animation of drinking potions, their healing potions weren't consumed and they weren't getting healed. I had them tried it multiple times, and the results were the same. What kind of preposterous bug is that?

My wizard is currently using a Superb Wand. If I have him choose the One-Handed Style ability, would all critable spells he casts have 20% chance of converting from Hits to Crits? For example, would Gaze of the Adragan have a higher chance to crit, which yields longer Paralyzed duration to enemies?

There is an armor enchantment called Rebound: 20% chance to Stun attacker for 2.0 sec when the wearer is Hit (includes Crit) with a melee weapon But what about a stunned enemy's recovery? Does recovery temporarily cease to progress under the stunned effect? If not, I think the Rebound armor enchantment would be pointless because enemies' recoveries usually take more than 2 seconds. That means they would have to wait more than 2 seconds until they can attack you again anyway, so getting stunned for just 2 seconds does not really matter to them.

Segmented Scutum: 10% of incoming Hits converted to Grazes from weapons Glancing Strikes: 10% of incoming Hits converted to Grazes from Melee weapons As we can see above, the first one covers all weapons, including ranged weapons, apparently, and the second one covers only melee weapons. While both equipment are equipped, surely the percentage regarding ranged weapons is still 10%. But what about the percentage regarding melee weapons? I doubt it's 10% + 10% = 20%. So what would the percentage regarding melee weapons become? It can't be still 10%, can it?

Boots of Speed gives +25% Stride and Deleterious Alacrity of Motion gives +100% Stride. If you cast Deleterious Alacrity of Motion on yourself while having Boots of Speed equipped, would you then have +125% stride? Update My test shows it does. I'm going to add this note to the wiki.

Update (spoiler alert) I sailed to that area today. At first, my ship flew my original flag and passed by the target ship with no conflict occurred. The target ship sailed away slowly and leisurely like they cared nothing about me. But after I put up a flag of the Vailian Trading Company and approached them again from behind, they suddenly turned towards me and sailed to me in a noticeably faster speed. And then the battle began. So that proved they were the one causing troubles to the Vailian Trading Company's survey ships. By the way, after defeating the target, if you haven't taken the quest and returned to the bounty hunter fixer, you would see the original dialog option for taking the quest and the second one for directly notifying her of the completion, as the attached figure shows. In that case, you would only get money and no exp if you choose the second dialog option. You need to choose the first dialog option first in order to get both money and exp. Last but not least, I would like to give the devs a thumb up on this detailed design of NPC having different reactions based on what flag you fly on your ship. 👍

I see. So they are really just suspecting. When I have a chance to sail to that area, I probably would try putting up a flag of the Vailian Trading Company and see if the target would attack me or not. If I get attacked, that would prove the target really is guilty and I would then take the opportunity to complete the quest.

Thank you. I mis-read "seasons" as "reasons" and thought "many reasons" means "many crimes". So, Fleet Master Wakoyo does not say the target has done a crime or crimes. That's disappointing. I think I won't do this quest after all.

I nearly lost a bounty quest due to the dialog being not easy-to-understand to every player. Fortunately, with a forum member's help, I can embark on that quest. For details, please see this thread. That reminds me of another bounty quest which I think I wouldn't do it. About that bounty quest, the Vailian bounty hunter fixer, who works for the Vailian Trading Company, wants me to hunt down a captain because they suspect the captain of intimidating survey ships (the company's, apparently), as shown in the attached figure. When I learned such a reason of theirs, I did not take the quest because I thought they only have a suspicion and do not have any proof. I don't want to wrongfully kill a captain. But after I gained the other bounty quest, which I described in the first paragraph, I can't help wondering whether there is anything I missed in the dialog of this bounty quest, such as not fully understanding the word "suspect" in the Vailian terminology. So, can anyone please help? Does the bounty offerers (the Vailian Trading Company) of this quest really only have suspicion? Or do they mean they already confirmed the target's crimes?

Wait a minute, I got it. So "She is known for bending nature to her will and pursuing her foes with relentless fury." is just a description about the druid class and is not describing any crime. I seriously suggest that the conversation be re-written. It's really confusing to players who do not understand the druid class. How many players who care about the purpose of the quest actually understand that the sentence is not describing any crime and is just telling us that the target is a druid?

Thank you for the information. I never thought of that. The dialog really should have been clearer. Still, I don't think she is criminal. A druid acting in that way surely is self-contradictory, but is far from deserving death, in my opinion.

I inquired about a bounty and the bounty giver asked me to kill someone because she bends nature to her will and pursues her foes with relentless fury, as the attached figure shows. I don't understand. What kind of crimes are those deeds? The quest is not clear about that. I do not do a bounty quest unless the target has been confirmed crime-doing. If Fleet Master Wakoyo were a druid, I would understand his reasoning regarding the nature, though I still wouldn't consider the deed a crime. But he is not a druid, so the quest does not make any sense to me.

My party is currently a level 10 party and has 5 characters. And the title of the quest Hunting Season in the Journal does not have a level indicator, which it should have. Those druids were not easy to deal with, and each of them had a level indicator of 1 or 2 skulls (for my level 10 party). It look me three tries with the uses of two figurines to defeat them. The quest title's lacking a level indicator can be misleading because it makes players think the quest is designed for their current levels.

In the quest A Matter of Import, after the fleet master said those words of appreciation (shown in the attached figure), you can choose to inform her of her smuggler charging double of the amount of money which was agreed beforehand. She would then say some words of understanding and compensate you. But then she immediately repeats those same words of appreciation. That apparently is a bug. By the way, there is an unnecessary "a" right after "I've".

There is a delightful background music being played when you're exploring the Hall of the Unseen and the Subterranean Temple. It completely ruins the immersion in those dungeons and needs to be removed. In those dungeons, you can also barely hear an eerie background music being played at the same time, and I think that should be the only background music being played. It's weird that the two completely different-themed music being played at the same time. Not sure if that's a bug.

@Noqn Thank you! That looks very clear! 👍 Hopefully, it could be implemented in a future update.

I chose Old Vailia as my meadow folk wizard's culture in both POE1 and 2 because it gives +1 Intellect and also because its description text in POE1 made me think that the "humans" it refers to are meadow folks. But after I made some progression in POE2, I realized that humans in Old Vailia were dominantly ocean folks. I think the description text is unclear in this respect and can easily cause players to choose mismatched cultures for their characters, like my case. The issue can also result in illogical conversations with NPCs. For example, there is a quest-bestowing NPC who is a ocean folk woman, and during our conversation she welcomed me saying "a face from the motherland is a welcome sight" (there is an Old Vailia icon at the beginning of that sentence of hers). And that's totally illogical. To players who take role playing seriously, the aforementioned issues can be unpleasant. Therefore, I suggest that the race names be changed to subrace names in the description text of cultures, or at least adding a solution so that it's easier for players to know a subrace is the dominant one in a specific culture.

The effect text of the Parrying Blade ability says it grants "+10 Deflection against Melee weapons". What if the melee opponent does not use weapons? Examples of such opponents include but are not limited to, boars, panthers, etc. Also, does it work against wurm in close combat?

This console command creates 10 scrolls of Ethereal Jaunt: giveitem n2_it_spdvscr008 I guess 10 is the default number of scrolls in a stack. But how do I create just 1 scroll? The giveitem command on the wiki is not clear about that. It says: I tried the following commands and they don't work: giveitem n2_it_spdvscr008[1] giveitem n2_it_spdvscr008[#1] giveitem n2_it_spdvscr008[:1] giveitem n2_it_spdvscr0081 giveitem n2_it_spdvscr008:1