Sabotin

My concern with it just that it will make combat faster. I'm enjoying PoTD more than Hard, just because it's slower due to higher enemy defenses.

They don't stack still.

The idea was that with this kind of distribution you would not be locked into a single weapon and would have some flexibility to adapt when facing different enemies. But the differences in enemies ended up not being pronounced enough to warrant a weapon switch more than once in a blue moon. Even on PoTD you can just brute force most encounters or compensate in other ways than weapon switching, though it was fun the first few levels when it actually did make a noticeable difference. Maybe that's intentional since as you level up you gain other active stuff to do instead.

Yeah the % bonuses/penalties are applied for all armors of that type, the only difference is that if it's fine/exceptional/superb/proofed the base changes. And the display rounds the numbers, you have to look at the combat log for more exact stuff. A fine scale would be 7+2=9 DR, with 9*0.75=6,75 for pierce (that's the 6.8 in the combat log you mention in your first post and the armor description would display it as 7)

Ha, I was trying to find some more info about this. I'm starting to think it's a labeling error. They are average since beta and even that early action/recovery concept table had them at same speed as 1h weapons... On a similar note, does anyone remember the attack speeds of bows from previous patches? Hunting bows are of average speed and war bows slow, yet their descriptions say fast and average respectively. Hunting bows used to say "average" but in 1.03 notes it said that they were labeled wrong and changed it to say "fast". So was the attack speed of bows nerfed since then or was the patch wrong in changing hunting bows' description instead of war bows'? Or did I completely miss the mark and the weapon speeds aren't supposed to be comparable between ranged and melee weapons. And also is there some way to set reloads to 0 to check the speeds of reloadable weapons too?

I just tried it and it seems to work fine for me. Hirbel's Skin DR = 7+2 = 9 Hirbel's Skin pierce DR = (7+2+3)*0,75 = 9 Without the proofing the DR against pierce attacks would be 6,75. It's looking weird cause of the way armor DR is calculated. The various increased/decreased resistances are a % modifier of the base DR, not a flat bonus/penalty, so you have to take that into account. See this table for reference: http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Armor

The way attacks are resolved I think flat values are just fine. 100 acc vs 90 def is the same as 40 acc vs 30 def. The 1h talent could be something else though. I'd look into something defensive, to even out the talent selection. Maybe apply the style bonus as deflection against a target you are engaging.

Are you sure the DR vs corrode is exactly 14? If I remember right the game calculates the special DRs as a % bonus/penalty on the armor's base, so any flat bonuses are modified by that? Or maybe it has something to do with MIN damage? Anyways, I've been doing some tests to see what effect dex and recovery has on overall damage output and stumbled upon something weird with the weapons' base attack speeds. It seems 2h melee weapons hit faster than they're supposed to. They are labeled as "slow", but they're in synch with "average" speed 1h melee weapons when attacking. Ranged weapons seem to hit slower than they're supposed to. Hunting bows and scepters for example are labeled as "fast" but comparing to melee weapons they're in sync with "average" ones. War bows, which the game says are "average", hit slower than "average" type melee weapons. Couldn't really compare reloading weapons to see if that's true for them too. Pistols reload slightly faster than arbalests even though they're both "very slow" but I'm not sure that tells anything. Anyone else has this? Bug, feature?

Well, Witcher 3 has 600k owners on steam and that's not even half of pc sales, so who knows.

Could it have something to do with the time it requires to "build" the characters? At about lv7 it seems like you have all the right talents/abilities for each specialised character, with the rest being just gravy on top. And by that time you also have the kind of gear you want on your characters, while before you kinda have to make do with suboptimal choices.

I have auto pause enabled for finishing ability casts and targets being destroyed and have noticed some weird stuff going on sometimes (not always). When the game pauses as an ooze dies, the ooze death animation still plays and kinda expands across the whole screen before disappearing. When I pause "just at the right time" some particle vfx then multiply as I unpause. Most noticeable for will-o-wisps attacks (the weird electric solar flare looking attack). Sometimes when I unpause the thing appears multiple times on top of itself, making a white cloud and tanking framerate untill it clears up. A similar thing happened in a pwgra fight, but i'm not sure what was being casting at the moment. I've had a xaurip not fully pause when auto pause for its death kicked in. Everything was properly frozen, except the xaurips head which was ragdolled and dangling from a stretched neck like a tetherball untill I unpaused. When fighting teleporting shadows there's some weird behaviour when I pause/unpause while they're doing the ability. Paused the game when one teleported and half a second after unpausing it ported right back to where it was before. So far I've only been seing these kinda of issue with enemies, not sure if it has anything to do with it. Has anyone else been experiencing these kinds of glitches? I've only noticed one other thread with something like this, from april.

Faith and conviction is only applied in combat (it also shows under active effects in the character screen then), could that be it?

The cyclopedia states that "Any Ability or Talent that does not use a weapon as part of the attack gains a small Accuracy bonus based on the level of the character" This seems to also apply to abilities and talets that DO use the weapon as part of the attack, but just for the "additional effect" part. For example when my lv 12 rogue uses Blinding Strike (a Full Attack ability) with 84 accuracy, he wil apply the damage using 84 accuracy (vs def.) and the blindness effect of the attack using 96 accuracy (vs ref.). This seems like a bug, or is it?

I think the problem lies not with the class, but the rest of the game. If the combat would be slowed down and relied less on the opening damage... I really like the idea that the class builds up and has some strong offensive abilities that turn the tide later in the fight. In theory this would make more defensive party setups competitive with the "best defense is a good offense" kind,

It might be something subjective, too. My hearing is probably below average, yet those sounds still make me cringe and rush through the dialogue. Using headphones probably isn't helping either, heh.

I wouldn't fully voice anything, especially when there's those description things going on in the middle of conversations and the VO clashes with your reading THAT often. First line of conversation for the "main plot" characters, with an extra line strategicaly placed at that big centerpiece dialogue/reveal/combat initiation etc. to accentuate it. I do believe though that everything should have that generic "greeting" line, I think it added some extra flavour and life to the world. You know the commoners' simple "hello?", nobles afraid of you touching them, thieves threatning you, barkeeps and their elven arses... Maybe even some custom greeting for those characters that you wouldn't put full lines on, but that have their own importance in the world.

I'm having an issue with the VO. Very often the "s" sounds in dialogue just seem really... sharp? If I wanted to dramatize I'd say it sounds like a nail scratching on a chalkboard. More noticeable with females, especially Grieving Mother. No issues with "c", "sh", "ch" and such. It's not even always present. For example from Grieving Mother's "So many questions, thoughts... whirling like storm winds..." the "so" and "storm" and even the first "s" in "questions" sound fine, but then I flinch with "questionSSS", "thoughtSSS", "windSSS". I hear it even on youtube videos of PoE and I haven't found anyone mentioning similar issues, so it might be somehting with me, but I've never encountered this problem anywhere else.

I was able to clean it up by doing the following: - Loaded the save (after patch the toggle was off but effect still on) - Turned on the toggle (added another instance of the effect) - Saved the game and then loaded the save I've just made - Turned off the toggle (all effects were removed, but turning it on again here produced multiple effects again) - Save/load again (turning it on/off from here on out worked correctly for me) But I only had the effect in double, not in triple like you, though hopefuly it will still help.

I would go with a simple +accuracy/+deflection bonus for 1h style weapon usage. I envision this would be used for the "medium BAB" type melees or as a secondary weapon for ranged etc, requiring little investment stat/class wise. Specialization would increase both stats (and maybe concentration?), assuming duelist type fighters would take it just to have higher basic combat stats/reliability. Attacks go like .--.--.--.--.-- Dual wield I'd assume would go on someone that wants to focus on DPS, thus just attack speed increase when using 2 weapons. Actually scratch that, leave attack speed the same but reduce the recovery time between attacks. Could give it a deflection penalty, too. Attacking faster also means more interrupt rolls, so that could offset it, or at least reqire the player to do more micro and play the cahracter in a different role. Specialization could then remove or lessen the penalty for the damage dealer type fighters, without actually making them take over striker roles. This'd be .-.-.-.-.-.-.- 2h weapons are just naturaly more damaging, which provides it's own benefits against DR, so no extra bonuses are needed. Maybe instead of an attack speed penalty they could get an accuracy one? These weapons would fit the same characters as dual wielding, just in a different perspective (and different enemies). Specializing would increase the existing strengths - more damage (or reduce/remove penalty)! Would look like -:---:--- Shields could just a be a cheap and simple sizeable deflection bonus. Maybe some extra concentration?. Obviously used for characters that get hit a lot. Could be something more interesting, like making the attacking characters roll twice and use the worse roll, or maybe provide extra DR for non-crits or something? I feel like characters focusing on defense shouldn't be penalized further offensively. The thing with defenses is that they're only useful when not having them would impede your ability to get through an encounter. When you're not getting hit they're just there doing nothing. I'm just being an armchair critic here as I didn't play the beta, though...

Story wise I always thought Amalur was the definition of potential unrealised. Smelled like PS:T, but didnt explore and flesh out the ideas it had. Anyway I'll also reserve my judgement for the world Obsidian built untill the game ships. So far I've noticed they put in a lot of meticulous details, which can be either good, making the world feel more organic/alive, or bad, obfuscating everything with unimportant details. I'm also hoping they'll make something new (or at least do it good) with the history of the world. We've seen the "rediscovering an ancient advanced civilization" thing many times already. And lastly I'm hoping the game will have a nice "theme" feel, like PS:T and KOTOR2 for example, where side stuff built on the story line or explored aspects of it. I'm a little sad they wont have those "lore excuses for mechanics", I thought they made stuff fit better together, even if in the back of the head you knew they were just excuses :D .

As others have pointed out it's probably solvable with crafting/enchanting mechanics. I actually have no idea how it works currently, but I suppose it has some exponential cost growth for more powerful items. You know, ultimate sword that's 3% stronger than the penultimate one but costs 20 times as much to make. Or some unique component that's needed for enchanting that legendary shiled has has to be imported from another area for a mountain of money. The more people are being completitionist, the more money they will have I assume, so the money sinks should be geared towards that, on the fringes of main gameplay.

I wouldn't worry much about finite resources. Usually in this kind of rpgs you only feel restricted by money for like half the game, before you start swimming in it. And comparing a legit and endless money run of bg1 I've found it's mostly different in the really early game when the basic gear matters, while later it just makes you upgrade more often in smaller amounts and by reaching baldur's gate it's the same thing.

Uh, yeah, how long does that thing last even? When I've suggested 100 deflection I was thinking for like 2-3 seconds, just as a panic button or to counter some big volleys. Not sure how mages are in this game, but if they're anywhere close to squishy as in the IE games you need to prevent damage, not lower it. AC improving stuff for mages was the last thing I get in BG, prefering to either keep them out of reach, intercept or disable threats or just focus firepower. Besides even a thousand deflection still leaves you vulnerable to many other things and as far as I understood squishy enemies need something so that they don't get instagibed and can actually cast a spell and be a threat.

Just make it give 100 deflection? All things equal you can't be hit, but we know things are never equal . Or maybe make it convert stuff to one grade lower (crits->hits->grazes->misses). Getting like 10% less dmg really doesn't sound that great for somethnig that's supposed to be a momentary respite.

It's not all about xp either; exploration rewards can be and probably should be differentiated. Taking BG1 as reference, your exploration can be rewarded with quests, fun encounters, hidden treasures, rare beasties, bits of lore, companions, shops, even just areas being pretty... Even the kill xp is sort of objective based in that game. At the start sure you can use every point available, from the monsters, but after a while you're only really getting it from specific types of enemis which are much rarer. Some you encounter on the crit path, but some you have to seek out or just blindly stumble into during your travels an exploration. It's really funny how replaying BG1 every few years makes me appreciate a different aspect of it :D .