Stun

Personally I'm getting tired of the "boss" concept outright. The most memorable combat encounters in the IE games were against groups, or other parties. Those are the most fun. The various bounty-hunter parties in BG1; the holy avenger battle in IWD2; The Hosttower assassins in IWD:HOW. Those were the most tactically challenging fights because they forced you to deal with a party that mirrors your own, skillset-wise. Modern RPGs have abandoned those types of encounters in favor of the Big Bad Bloated Boss and his forgettable trash-mob minions - A tired cliché encounter design overused by developers who lack creativity

Digital copies can unlock and be ready to play at 12:01am on the release date. But you'll only get that perk if you pre-order the game.

Yeah, the link is to the wrong URL Here's the correct one BTW http://eternity.obsidian.net/news/pillars-of-eternity-has-gone-gold

Yeah, I don't understand the premise behind the immersion claim. My immersion wasn't broken in PS:T when I managed to defeat TTO by just talking to him. Nor was my immersion broken in Witcher 2, when I learned that Letho wasn't even a BBEG in the first place.

Yes.

This would make the final boss way too easy. Do you remember BG1? How would you rank Serevok in terms of difficulty? Because he was 16th level. In other words, he was twice a level capped party's level. Plus he had allies, plus his gear was cheese (his armor was +5 full plate and gave him 90% magic resistance) Yet BG1's final encounter was 'just right' challenge-wise IMO. Besides, there's nothing wrong with giving crit-path minimalists what they deserve in the end: A Hard time.

I'm not worried in the slightest. Both of the BG games managed a design where the optional content totally outweighed the crit path content by a factor of 3x or more. And this lead to completionist parties who were several levels higher than crit path minimalist groups. And it wasn't a problem. There's no reason to think this design won't be successfully duplicated in PoE. Plus this game has a level cap.

Wow! That's super cool. And this is a reveal. We know from the very first gameplay demo that Calisca would be asking your character some background questions and that your answers would fill out your biography. But they never said anything about this process being ongoing until the end of the game.

Way to totally kill the discussion! Good job.

^BALANCE! lol

What? Changes from the IE games that people have gone ballistic over in PoE include the following (in no particular order): 1) The XP system 2) Per encounter wizard spells 3) Crafting 4) Lack of romances 5) Lack of a spell memorization system 6) The Engagement mechanic 7) Lack of rogue skills like pick pocketing 8.) Lack of Pre-buffing 9) The inventory system 10) The health and stamina system 11) The lack of healing spells 12) The lack of invisibility spells Abbreviated list; Doesn't include everything. And there's been some give and take between the devs and the fanbase over the past couple of years with many of these designs. Make no mistake about this, PoE has been through the brutally strict Grognard Test of Validity™. The level of scrutiny of every single detail is probably more than what a normal person would consider even remotely fair, but the fact that the game has made it through and these same IE fans/Grognards are still intensely looking forward to playing this game speaks volumes.

Beta 480 is already leaps and bounds less buggy than the standard Obsidian day one release

We all know what Larp stands for. But I didn't invent the meme. Linguistically accurate or not, it's used in cRPGs to describe scenarios like the ones I listed.

By the way, for the curious, here is the one screenshot that was ever released for the Cancelled BG3 Black hound:

They're synonyms, sorta. The modern day gaming term for what Sensuki is describing IS Larping. In a video game, larping is when you do RPish things "just for fun" or "just to stay in character" when the game doesn't actually recognize that you're doing it. A few examples. In Skyrim, you can choose to eat a meal 3 times a day, and get to sleep by 10 pm every night. Or find a Talos Shrine and make offerings to it. It means Nothing in the game, but...you're staying in character. Good for you! In Baldur's gate 1, you can decide that Joia's house (the house next to the Friendly Arm inn) belongs to you now. And so, you can choose to live in it, sleep in it, use its 2 chests to store stuff etc. In Baldur's gate 2, you can decide to be a Priest of Ilmater. The game does not recognize this. There's no Ilmater cleric Stronghold option. There's no Cleric-specific Ilmater quests. But there are a couple of Ilmater temples, and you can decide that those will be the only temples you frequent, do business with, donate to, etc.

I know this is something that some people have brought up before, but it bears repeating. I can't stand the way this game presents statistics. And this picture here is a perfect example. x1.2 damage. It looks so....soulless to me. Why don't they just say "spell damage increased by 20%"? Easier to comprehend and it *looks* so much more impressive.

Hyperbole again? Ok, I'm done taking you seriously. From now on, every absurd claim from you will be countered with equal absurdity, for the lulz. Ahem. You are mistaken of course. BG1 is a game where any enemy can one-shot your whole party. Therefore, having a +1 weapon does not mean you've won the game, since +1 weapons offer no AC bonus.

Where did that ring come from? Where did those potions come from? Where did those boots come from? What about that amulet? And the Bracers? or Scrolls? By the way, one of the tactics I use on occasion in BG2 is, in fact, looting during combat. And this is where the meta gaming knowledge that you call "nonsense" makes a huge difference. An under-leveled party (or a soloer) who wants Celestial Fury, would do well to bull-rush Koshi and kill him, then loot Celestial fury off his corpse, then use it in the rest of the encounter. Again, that's meta-knowledge. Clear and obvious to BG2 veterans because BG2 makes you loot individual corpses so that you learn specifically who drops what.

Nothing like that. In order to share the same loot window, 2 corpses in the IE games must overlap. They must share the same x and y coordinates. And those are measured in pixels, not... meters, or half meters.

the radius is 3 meters....or about as big as the standard wizard AOE spell in this game

It didn't, really. And the proof is on the backer beta feedback forum. Browse it... page by page. Show me a single thread, since the backer beta was released last august, where anyone complained that individual corpse looting was something that needed to go. You'll find none. Because people were ok with it. It's noteworthy that one can find a few threads where backers are complaining about that glow over the corpses. Of course, the Area looting feature they just put in does not change this.

^Throne of Bhaal, Sendai's Enclave, slave tunnels. Not a meaningful example of anything because: 1)There is exactly nothing worthwhile to be looted on those corpses. And no, those dozens of +1 axes, and +2 halberds are NOT meaningful to pick up in ToB, even if 'vender trash accumulation' is the motivator (and if you're having money problems in ToB, you're playing it wrong already. A 3 meter loot range won't save you.) 2) A 3M radius looting mechanic wouldn't make much of a difference here...since there are many, many packs of enemies and you'll still have to click on 20-30 corpses before you're done with that one passageway. In any case, I'm not necessarily against this mechanic in PoE, considering the nature of the loot in the game. If 90% of all enemies drop nothing but crafting supplies and generic gear, then sure, a mechanic that speeds up the gathering process would be welcome, I suppose.

3 meter radius. Although, josh didn't mention whether or not this area of effect is increased with a high intellect score. lol

Have they fixed the Dex bug?

Same. If for no reason but to be armed with meta-knowledge for my next playthrough. But this is merely a hurdle, not a real problem. I'll just develop my L33t killing skills. Named enemies will die precisely more than 3m apart from each other.