Stun

^and they did it in Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir...sorta. You find Mephit Guano. You can use it. It grants you the ability to cast Stinking Cloud 1/day.

Indeed. This is a symptom of poor pacing, by the way. And it's not limited to the plot. I often times found myself not understanding the companions, for the same reason. It's....hard to explain. Some people have accurately pointed out that the game *dumps* the lore on you. It's overwhelming. This is a new setting and we should be eased in, not dropped in. But that's only part of the problem. -Another part of the problem is that The game often times won't properly present major plot occurances/events. For example, about halfway through my first playthrough, I looked at my character and discovered that he had 2 *Watcher* abilities. And I have no idea when or how, or why he acquired them -- because the game didn't tell me, it just gave them to me. WTF. That's...bad story telling. In Planescape Torment, when the Nameless One acquired his raise dead ability (and later, his stories-bones-tell skill), there was major story-based fanfare for it. You KNEW when it happened because the game told you....and made a big deal about it. -And the companions.... Either I have terrible reading comprehension, or the game's writers went too heavy on the whole "lets beat around the bush for styles sake". In Defiance Bay, Both Eder and Pallegina have an Opinion on the factions. But damned if I know what it is. Eder seems to despise the Dozens.... But its vague....right up until you actually choose a faction, and then he rants.... or something. Pallegina likes Anamancy....I think. -Durance is a worshipper of Magrimm...no wait...he's not. Wait...I think he is? Aloth Talks to himself.... A lot. But the game doesn't explain anything about it, and you can't investigate it even a little bit...until much later on, when his entire story is suddenly dumped on you, just like the lore...without an iota of *presentation*. -In the beginning of the game Calsica asks you if you're here to take advantage of Raedric's deal.....as if you're supposed to know who Raedric is, or what this deal is about. But the game doesn't care, because you're given zero information about it.... It's like the game is assuming player Meta-knowledge. And this kind of stuff happens from the beginning to the end, and it's quite jarring. There are a lot of plot-based decisions to make, but for me they were often blind choices because I did not have enough information to make an informed decision.

Yeah. If you decide to avoid the few keys in this game that are tied to doors/chests that can be picked, then you'll have "tricked" this 70 hour game into giving you about 2000 extra XP. Congrats.

Because enchanting hats would be unfair Hats are a thing that Godlikes can't wear Would imbalance the game A whole race rendered lame Unless they could enchant their hair.

I'm kinda surprised more people aren't suggesting Pike builds for their Rogues. There's a Pike you can get from the blacksmith in Dyrford that inflicts Prone on a hit. That's *so* ideal for a rogue. Plus it's a pike, which means you don't have to be on the front lines to inflict your melee damage. So it's a safer weapon.

Lets not go overboard with the exaggeration here. The majority of doors/locks that have keys in this game cannot be picked. As for the ones that can, why shouldn't the game reward people who chose to forgo putting their points into stealth, or athletics, or lore, in favor of mechanics, so that they *could* get some bonus XP?

it can be measured, yes. Since pain no matter physical or mental is proccessed by the same areas of the brain. The pain climax however is a shock, not the issues that the ppl claim to lead to suicide or whatever. The so called "phychological trauma" is described by a gap in memory, not the other way around. It's psychological Trauma? Like being molested by your mama? There's no shame It's just a game But everyone loves a drama. Ok, ok, I'll stop now.

This thread is serious business To that, everyone here bears witness It won't go away And opinions won't sway So we'll just sit here and drown in lameness

Dongs in t-shirts is lewd But don't take it off or you'll be nude! Go hide over there Or find something else to wear But for God sakes, stop being rude!

Of Bosses in RPGs, there are a ton In BG2, I can list every last one There's Bodhi and Shangular Fiirkraag and Baalthazar But Irenicus is the most fun.

I prefer that place they call Eora, It's much more exciting than.... Scania There are Trolls to fight And Stats like Might And lots of dungeons to entertain ya.

Zork was the first RPG I ever played. I don't know when that was though. Some time in the 80s. But according to Wiki, Zork came out in the 70s. So I must have played the 'enhanced edition" or something.

Here lies Prime Junta, the man with a lot! When it comes to Social Justice, full is his Pot! He counters faster He's the battlefield master And.....dot. dot. dot.

Oh hi bruce! You're here. I did a limerick just for you. Here, lies Bruce, a hero to some Wishes to bed Sagani, but has remained mum He secretly sighs and wails Claims that POE Fails Because it has no romances, "how come?!!"

Not correct. There were people who did ask for trap xp. And the dev's listened. Yeah, a LOT of us did, since that's how BG2 did it. You know, BG2....the Greatest of the IE games.

Really? we're going to base our argument on 1 friggin map in the game? Why don't we take into account the entire bestiary. Because that's what's really at play here. The fact of the matter is that a good deal of it involves monsters who's creature entry is >1000xp. Not to mention the fact that most traps in this game aren't level 10. And...In a game where the level cap is just 66,000xp, the XP rewards for filling out the whole Bestiary (which is thousands upon thousands of XP) are....massive. Unless of course, you decide to build your party without f*cking 50 billion-gillion ranks in mechanics, in which case you have made a serious build choice, which will see you having to forgo lock XP in favor of using that Key instead, which is the price you must pay for choosing to max out your stealth skill, or your survival skill instead.

Here lies...Ellen, a heroine in bed, Was once alive but now she's dead, The last thing she bedded turned out to be a whore, Condemend by Josh, 'cause.... DeGeneres Behavyor.

There....Is....Combat.....XP....In....This....Game.

Not from just the Raedric's hold quest specifically, since the majority of the enemies you can fight in that quest are people... and People-killing in this game doesn't give XP. But when you take the game as a whole, there's no comparison. You get a Sh*t ton more kill XP than lock/trap xp. ( Which was something that was pointed out to you in your silly straw man thread, as you might recall)

I had no problems whatsoever finding ingredients in this game. usually any time I wanted to place an enchantment on my gear I'd hit the enchant button and then choose the enchant and the screen would show that I had like, 16 of something that I only needed 1 of. lol The only exception to this is when you hit level 12 and you want to add 'superior' to your weapons and armor. Yeah, there's where you hit the roadblock, since you need Adra Dragon scales. And there's only one place in the whole game where those can be had (that I've found at least).

As opposed to design complaints, which aren't? Is that what you're trying to say? PoE is not some sacred entity above criticism. It does some things exceptionally well, but it also does a lot of things really badly, illogically, inelegantly, stupidly, lazily. And this is despite the fact that its developers have had the luxury of 5 ancient, namedropped classics to look back on and take influence from, as well as an entire community's worth of backers who gave them valuable advice and insight for 6 straight months by test driving their beta. Actually, I see design complaints as more legitimate than bug complaints. At least bugs come with the territory. There will never be a bug-free release. And bugs are an unintentional thing that can be fixed relatively quickly. Design flaws, on the other hand, are a completely different beast. They define the game. And sometimes ugly things like Ego, Pride and misguided gaming philosophy enter into the equation and result in the design not being altered in the slightest, even though a bad design can ruin a gaming experience far more drastically than any bug.

No. Edit: Nope. lol Edit2: Echo-chamber forum ideals aside, if no one voices their complaints about this game's craptastic stealth, or its banal, tactics killing engagement mechanic, or its lazy encounter design, or its insultingly slapped together stronghold, or its totally mis-paced XP distribution system, the devs will think they did everything right (90 Metacritic score; we finally cracked the code, yo!), and we will end up getting a Sequel that doesn't fix any of those things, because there was no need to, because no one complained. I don't want that. Do you?

Oh, I'm totally fine with concluding what you wish me to conclude: that its story is nothing unique in the gaming world. But then, that would leave PS:T without ANY redeeming qualities, wouldn't it. Unless of course you Applaud party-based RPGs where your companions have no weapon or armor choices, where your class options are limited to 3, where you can't pick your protagonist's race, or gender, or name. Where you can't equip your main toon with a missile weapon. Where you can't wear armor. Where "tactical combat" consists of clusterf*ck melee ('cuz there's only one archer in the game), And where dungeon design includes the Modron cube. Where your main character is immortal, where he gets a 7th level spell (resurrection) 3 times a day.... at level 1. Did I miss anything? Oh yeah. Where there's no swords. And where the bestiary consists of about 10 different types of monsters. Where you can heal yourself while the game is paused, thus rendering death in battle impossible.

You're not the only one. Add me to the list. (well, ok, add me to the list of people who do not understand the gushing praise behind MoTB). It was one of those games that had a "good" story, and not much else. (ie. my point) And it was another example of Obsidian-itis combat. I remember my first playthough of MoTB. I crafted a weapon that was so powerful that it killed any enemy it hit in one round. Normally this wouldn't be a huge deal, except that in MotB it was sometimes important to keep those enemies alive long enough so you could devour their souls, or eternal rest them. But....couldn't be done. Enemies died if you looked at them too hard. I found myself struggling the entire game to "hold back". And it didn't help that Gann, Safiya and Kaelen were tossing out Mass Drowns, Wails of the Banshee and Storms of vengeance as if they were magic missiles. And even the story was stupidly flawed. That Giant Deus Ex Machina with the Wall of the Faithless.... yeah.

Indeed, You're certainly free to just spout silly hot air retorts like "Implausable!" and "yer wrong!". Without actually putting up a rebuttal. I, on the other hand, can point to 40 friggin years of Gaming history to back up my claim.