Sensuki

Unfortunately the search function on this site sucks and only shows like the last year's worth of entries, but he's made a lot of posts on here and on Something Awful that explain a lot as to why the game is the way it is/why things are designed the way they are. 2012-2013 has probably the best lot of 'conceptual' posts by him but today they are hard to search. There'll practically have to be. I'm not sure if it's confirmed anywhere, but there really should be a lot more portraits. I especially like the ones that look-the-same-but-not-really, like the female Nature Godlike. I think that the entire library of portraits should be like that. Those are the ones I like the least, simply because the art is worse than the others. The ones done by Kaz and Lindsey Laney are the best ones. I'm not sure how many more portraits they'll be able to do. They take quite a bit of time.

Still much better than what we have here though.

Expected Result: When I load a game, the modal abilities I had activated should be activated.

Haha, the backers at large (myself included) really did not want to see cooldowns in this game, because that doesn't feel very D&D or Infinity Engine. I myself am an DotA 2 player. DotA 2 has cooldowns. I enjoy cooldown-based gameplay. But I didn't want to see it in this game, because I backed this game because I want to have an Infinity Engine experience again. I do agree with you about combat messiness. There are also several AI bugs with party members that cause them to not do what you told them to do as well. The messiness is a combination of a fairly large list of factors, you're correct that it's not really any single thing, it's a lot of things together. I think many people would disagree with you about having to rest to get spells back immersion breaking, because that's what happens in a lot of RPGs (especially Pen & Paper RPGs). Modern RPGs have edged more towards cooldowns, but also many modern RPGs don't include resting. I think the use of per-encounter abilities makes per-rest abilities not really worth it, if you're given a choice between a per-encounter or a 3xrest ability. That makes it very hard to balance classes and abilities in general.

How much do you know about the Lead Designer?

You used to be able to access the console commands, but they removed access to them in the patch after I started summoning items that weren't in the beta and posting pictures of them on the forum. They have also since asked people not to post any non-beta stuff on the internet at all. That was the main reason anyway. Fortunately, Bester's mod unlocks them again Very handy for quickly testing things (worth it even just for allowing skipping the Obsidian intro).

Age of Empires combat is more similar to the Infinity Engine games than this is Do you find the amount of micromanagement involved too much and the pace of combat too quick ? If so, the slow button might offer you some respite.

Iconic Projection has wonky combat log entries Hit duration being used for grazes and crits on various non-weapon based abilities and spells - recognized by QA Save games do not remember which modals you had active - fixed internally

In v392, various non-weapon based abilities and spells are inflicting status effects for the hit duration on both grazes and critical hits. So far I have encounted this with Halt: Knock Down: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/69925-392-knock-down-bugs/ and now Barbaric Yell I assume this is related to a programming error rather than specific to the abilities themselves, so I probably won't bother posting an more examples in here.

Expected Result: Iconic Projection uses a single line for hitting and damaging enemies and the damage dealt is displayed correctly (currently on the top line it displays the graze amount assuming 0 DT).

More like, make it more like IWD:HoW / BG2 / IWD2 (but that won't happen so we'll have to mod it).

Glad to hear you're finally coming around. The Infinity Engine games have the best spell battles of any game hands down IMO (Well, IWD/HoW, IWD2 and BG2 respectively). It's the counterspelling that does it and the interesting things you can do to deal with different situations. Unfortunately Pillars of Eternity won't really have any of this. You have stuff like lowering a particular enemy defense and then attacking that defense, but that's about it really =/ It's really shallow in comparison, with almost no tactical depth at all.

Area Map Close button is dark

Looks like the area map UI is darker on the right side for some reason (unless that's a trick of the eye and the close button is just dark), either way it wasn't dark in any of the previous patches and doesn't match the other UI screen brightness of the close button.

Expected Result: Despite being greyed out, the spells in the Grimoire should update in the Action Bar UI as soon as the Grimoire has been closed

Expected Result: Just grey out the text of the spell or something, and make sure that you can still inspect the spells, because when spells are not assigned to the Grimoire is exactly when you would want to inspect them to see what they do.

Yeah that's likely another scenario, although it's just one of the many shortcuts they've taken that make the game that little bit more frustrating to play.

Just an anecdote: A while ago, Jolting Touch used to be the best Level 1 Wizard spell because it did the best damage and was ranged. In v333 (?) it was unfortunately nerfed to be a melee range spell like the D&D version of Shocking Grasp. I only found out this by trying to cast the spell from range and having my Wizard start to run into melee to cast it. For a new player especially, this could be a very dangerous activity due to the engagement system. I think that the cast range of spells and non-weapon based abilities should be shown in the description so that people can learn before they cast them about how far away they can be. This also needs to be the case because of the inclusion of the bonus range from Perception, because a percentage based bonus is very hard to calculate at a glance especially if you're not even sure of the base range of an ability (or ranged attack, for that matter).

Possible VFX bug with Barbs of Condemnation Issue/Complaint about changes to Paladin Auras Issue with aiming Ray Spells Hit reaction VO plays on non-damaging spells Spells, Non-weapon based abilities and Ranged weapons need their range in the description Can't inspect unused spells of a spell level with fully assigned Grimoire slots - recognized by QA Minor display bug with Grimoire Spells in Action Bar during Active Grimoire Cooldown

Expected Result: Hit Reaction VO should not play when hit by a non-damaging spell (or on a miss, for that matter).

You're right that in comparison to the Chanter, the Paladin does not have much choice. They've also been nerfed a bit in the last patch.

Sometimes when aiming Ray spells, the caster moves to cast the spell from near the position of the mouse cursor when the casting click was aimed by the player. This usually happens when the spell is aimed at certain angles across other units. A while ago I made a suggestion to change the way Ray and Cone spells work so that you can target the ground, however I realize I forgot to take into account the fact that you can rotate the spell as well. Ideally how I would like Cone and Ray spells to work, would be that they would be cast on the ground by clicking on the ground, the default angle would always be straight from the position of the character (and shown), upon selecting the ground target for the base of the spell, you could then move the mouse around to aim the ray/cone and left clicking again would issue the command to the caster to move into position if out of range, and then cast the spell.

Nope, was just wondering. I read your statement as if you hadn't actually played them yet I think I just read it wrong, so don't mind that comment. I agree about Lay on Hands and Flames of Devotion. I never pick Lay on Hands. It heals you for a pitiful amount (and over time, I might add, the heal/sec is terrible) and it's per day. Flames of Devotion helps me kill things faster every encounter, night and day difference between the two abilities there. edit: check this out: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/69928-392-issuecomplaint-about-changes-to-paladin-auras/

Finally got your refund did you?