Lohi

Finished all the class quests. Some of them seem very odd, not even like quests. Many of them just seem to... fizzle. No resolution, problem isn't solved, tell the character to suck it up and move on. Anyway, I did shift characters in and out a lot. There were some places where there was character interaction that I would not have expected, not quest related but along the same lines, and if I had a different group I would have missed it.

OK, I did defeat it finally. Realized very late that I wasn't really on easy mode after all, and that when I did change difficulty the number of additional enemies was still high because I hadn't left the room. Also lied to the dragon so that I could leave, talk to the dragonslayer, come back, and then managed to kill the few adragon before having to fight the dragon. Xaurips showed up eventually but fight was long enough that I summoned a couple of ogres to occupy them, then would occasionally cast spells that way. All of Aloth's petrify casts failed, and I swapped him in just for that reason, but he was better at dealing with xaurips than grieving mother (who never ever manages to dominate anything powerful). I think a key thing was putting the Venombloom underneath the dragon. Did not do any kiting because of all the xaurips, but spread out the party some. The dragon never breathed after the first time (very unusual I think) but Eder was tripping it now and then. Or maybe the venombloom frighten effect did that? First blast of breath dropped two spellcasters and Eder but Durant had enough endurance left to eventually raise them back.

deleted

I hadn't realized how many levels there were. So I was basically doing one level in between what I considered moderate story pieces. Head back to the stronghold, do another level, rest up for free, then head back out. But I think I'm getting behind, so now I'm doing multiple levels so that I don't end the game before finishing up Od Nua. I'm doing hard difficulty (the one just above normal), so sometimes there can be a lot of enemies at once. But on normal difficulty I think you could get quite far at level 6.

I did exactly the same thing. I get a bounty, go to where it says to go, and sure enough there's a group of bandits. Conversation ensues before and after the fight. This was the first bounty so I sort of assumed that's how it went. I was sort of annoyed that imprisoning him didn't finish the bounty. Later I released him thinking he might come back after me for revenge later, but no luck. I even went back to Magran's Fork and searched around, but I missed seeing anyone else, but I didn't to a full search. So then I read this thread and go to check a second time, and voila, a "second" Sly Cyrdel. Then I load up an old save game and sure enough, it was Gramrfel I had in prison... So it's a reasonable mistake to make.

I sort of had the idea during development that we could do all the companion quests, or at least not ignore them all. Unlike the headache of trying to do this in BG/BG2. For example, in BG there were potential companions you'd find when the game was nearly over which then became rather pointless, and so POE was going to solve some of this. But so far (I'm still in the main city) things look a bit worrisome in this regard. Most of the companion quests seem to have a very long duration. I may or may not have finished one of the quests, but I can't really tell, it just fizzled out (Aloth). the quest shows as completed but I'm suspicious it may start at any time. Other than that everything is still active, but I have found 2 extra NPCs I can't use and so park them at the stronghold. It really feels like I just won't be able to do it. Either I need an NPC at exactly the right place and right time, or they all get resolved near the end of the game, or something like that. No one has a quest that you can just go and do easily and then swap in someone else (which you could sort of do in BG2 for a bit). The stronghold system seems like it can solve some of this, but from where I am now it still seems hopeless. What I'm doing is removing Kana right now (which I *hate* to do mid-quest) and swapping some others in, unless I'm at the particular location that Kana's quest indicates he's interested in. Swapping someone in means I have no gear for them really either. So: are doing all companion quests possible with a "normal" play through (no spoilers, or figuring out dependency graphs, etc)? If I wait until the end of the game does it become pointless to bring in a companion because nothing will ever happen after that?

With today's games, just being different gets you a high score. So many game makers are afraid to get outside the box so you see the same thing reimplemented again and again. There are a lot of people waiting for good RPG games, so any of them will get a good score as long as they're decent. It may not be the huge market of a shooting game or JRPG but it still makes a lot of players happy. So whether PoE or DA:O are better is irrelevent, both are great games and it's nice to have both of them around in the barren RPG wasteland.

Quite satisfied not to see any D&D games. PoE is most definitely not a D&D game. The D&D games in the past that I liked, I liked for reasons other than the creaky old game system. Often the biggest faults I found in those games were in the way that D&D was shoehorned onto the game where it works better on the tabletop than run by computer, and the rigid fanatical adherence to whatever the latest ruleset was (probably insisted upon by WotC before they had out the license). There are soooo many RPG systems designed since D&D crawled out of the swamp, it would be nice to see some variety. Which is what this game has.

I'm wondering how you get your tank to target everything. My wizard dies more than my rogue. Mostly from spirits and phantoms that just teleport past the tank and start slamming the wizard. Even for melee enemies it's not uncommon for the tank to be unable to block everything (on hard).

True, anyone who honestly wants a refund would not go and ask about this publicly. Doing so it just a wink-and-a-nod way to say "this sucks".

"Game breaking" is a stretch. Yes, you can end up being a bit weaker than you could be if you double click to wear gear, but it won't break the game. Every single game has some bugs on release. The classics that everyone loves and plays over the years all had some bugs. And ever single game that has ever been released has people showing up to complain bitterly about it. The first person to ever play football probably complained that his toes were getting sore. As some described it elsewhere, Obsidian is the worst game company ever, a position shared jointly by the majority of game companies. But on the other hand, it hurts not at all to wait awhile.

Hmm, I thought engagement was just having the arc'ed line drawn between two circles.

I notice that there are several types of combat circles that appear under characters. Plain circles, the four wedges, one with little spikes around the inside, and maybe some others I haven't found yet. What do some of these variants mean? Ie, Eder typically has the circle with spikes on the inside, and I used to think this meant he was defending or something tanky like that, but then I saw it on other characters so now I'm not sure.

First, hard mode is plenty hard for me. Maybe after a few play throughs it will get easier, but as it is some fights are very hard. Second, it's ironic that at the same time players are complaining that the companions are too gimped and useless and that they should be beefed up. How can it be both ways, too easy and the party still needs to be buffed? I think there are a couple types of players who keep showing up again and again in some games. Those who will always say it's too easy (for ego reasons, or to tweak others), and those who feel that they must have the perfect builds and perfect party. It just keeps happening again and again over the years.

Rogue in this game is not the same that you see in other games. Don't play this game as if it's yet another D&D clone. ANY character can be the lock picker and trap disarmer. There's a companion you run across early that has mechanic points and is not a rogue (he had 3 mechanical points when I found him, it may vary for others). You can let that person be the mechanical guy and not worry about rogues, or be your own mechanical specialist.