Elerond

Larian counted their budget/expenses in euros. They had ~4 millions euro, 3 of their own, 1 from Kickstarter. I'm not sure how much that would be in dollars. I certainly hope PoE will do at least as good as D:OS, if only to see the sequel. It is bit over 5 million dollars with exchange rates during development of D:OS , now it is about 4.33 million dollars, as euro has weakened during last autumn and beginning of this year compared to dollar. They only got about 1 million dollars from KS.

My guess is that it's an easy-to-implement feature introduced to make it possible for players to change their portraits in order to take advantage of newly added portraits. Different people work on different stuff. You can't have everyone working on the AI all at once. Also, the AI in the game is crummy, but there's actually much more important systemic issues to address. But I'm sure someone is working on the AI, too. So it's not so much a matter of priority as much as a matter of reality. Crappy AI seems commonplace in computer games. I'm guessing good AI is one of the more difficult things to implement. Good AI is extremely hard to implement and more complex game and it mechanics are harder it is. Game AI programming is also somewhat different from your typical computer AI programming as you want make AI so that it gives illusion that it does it best to win player even though in reality you don't really want it to be better than the player, which is usually quite hard as players usually can see where AI does stupid moves and they can exploit those moves to win the AI, which usually causes players to lose all illusions that AI is actually smart.

When market often rejects those developers and publishers that take risks and rewards those who don't it will lead situation where those who put most money in the game will take least risks, as it is best way to guarantee that game will produce profits. I just hope that relatively good success of recent higher profile RPG's (Divinity Original Sin, Wasteland 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, Pillars of Eternity, Bloodborne and hopefully Witcher 3) will lead situation where those with money see RPGs as safe option and start produce more of them.

Um.... not even friggin' close, dude. Like.... just no. It's #10 on the Top 10. And only title that it ever held was highest funded game in Kickstarter, mantle that it lose few months later for Torment Tides of Numenera, which lost it for Exploding Kittens card game.

Drakensang and it's prequel use The Dark Eye -rpg system. Which has climbing health (if you mean that you get more health during level ups), although it also has wounding system that allows killing high health character's without need to take characters vitality to zero. I don't remember if Drakensang had some alternations for this system. I am also little confused about OP's message, as PoE don't use D&D, even though it uses lots of similar mechanics. And most of the D&D games that come out after NWN were already in production before it come out or they were add-ons to NWN. Although there were NWN2 and Dungeons & Dragons Online several years later.

There is are at least 5 uses of culture of Ruatai (Not Rautai like it is written in strategy guide and wiki Guidebook volume 1, I am not sure how it effects in game checks with characters that have selected Rautai or Ruatai culture option) in Kana's conversation file

You can find shields with following special enchantments Bashing: Grants bash (1 large shield) Vigilance: 10% of incoming hits are covered to grazes (1 large shield) Safeguarding: +10% of incoming Crits coverted to Hits (1 large shield) Preservation: +10 Defense while Stunned, +10 Defense while Prone (1 large shield and 1 small shield) Harbinger: Grants Harbinger. (Passive: Foe AoE: -3 Accuracy over 3 sec vs. Will) Area of Effect: 2.5m Radius (base 2.5m) from Caster, Effects: Foe AoE: -5 Accuracy for 3 sec (1 medium shield) Minor Spellbind: Winter Wind: Grants Winter Wind. Area of Effect: Length: 10.0m (base 10.0m) 60° Cone, Interrupt: 40 (Average) Effects: AoE: 30-50 Freeze, 5.0m Push vs. Fortitude +10 Accuracy) (1 medium shield) Herald: +5 All Defenses (two small shields) Retaliation: Retaliate when hit by a Melee Attack (1 small shield) Reflection: Ranged Grazes reflected back at attacker (1 small shield) 1 Small shield is only shield that has more than one special enchantments. Enchantments are from strategy guide, so there is possibility that enchantment in game does something else than what is stated above . In my opinion Herald, Retaliation, Bashing and Vigilance are best enchantments. Herald: because +5 to all defenses that stacks with deflection bonuses from shield is just nice. Retaliation: Free hits are always nice Bashing: Gives you ability to get shield bonus and faster hit rate of two weapons and it seems to get accuracy bonus from shield quality enchantment, but damage is weak, which lessens it usefulness quite lot in end game. Vigilance: Is nice for those who don't buff their deflection in absolute maximum, but instead take some offensive abilities and talents. In my opinion Little Savior is probably best shield in the game as it has superb quality enchantment outright and it has Herald and Preservation special enchantments. But to subject of topic, I think bashing enchantment make shield quite good, even though its effectiveness suffers somewhat in end game, but in beginning and middle of game especially if you use hatchet it usually rises amount of damage that your tank can deal, of course this depends quite lot on build of the tank.

Spears are better against enemies with high DR and rapiers against enemies with no DR or low DR. Although rapiers become better again against those enemies that have high enough DR to make you only to do minimum damage. Spears are in peasant weapon focus section with quarterstaffs (two handed, 14-20 crush, reach, slow), hatchets (+5 deflection, 9-13 slash, fast) and hunting bow (ranged, 9-14 pierce, fast), unarmed. Rapiers are in noble weapon focus section, where there is also daggers (slash, +5 accuracy, fast, single handed), maces (3 DR bypass, 11-16 crush, single handed, average), scepters (ranged, fast, 11-16 crush/slash) and rods (11-16 pierce/slash, ranged, fast). So in most part secondary weapon options are better for rapier than spear. There are pretty good unique rapiers and spears in the game. Sword of Daenysis - 1.2 x speed and rending [5 DR bypass]) Vierina’s Leaves - 1.2 x damage against prone, stunned and flanked enemies has also superb enchantment outright) Cladhalíath - enchantments depend on your choices but some combinations are pretty good. The Vile Loner’s Lance - Disorienting (-5 to all defenses for 5 seconds on hit) Danulya - 1.2 x attack speed So I would probably choose double rapier (double mace, dagger+mace or rod/scepter) because its secondary weapon options, but double spear+ quarterstaff combination is also quite good.

Sorry man, Call of Duty and Battlefield totally disprove that theory. Actually most "AAA" games disprove that theory. Though Skyrim is vastly better than most schlock that sells millions of copies while offering no substance. It's just a really, really, really flawed game, like everything Bethesda makes. They don't, you just don't like what they offer. That's what I'm talking about. Sales drop when worse ones come out. I don't like what they offer because they offer virtually nothing. That's the hallmark of AAA gaming really, Completely without substance most the time. Just pretty graphics and lots of violence. They (COD and Battlefield) usually offer what their audience wants which is visual and gameplay update to their arena military shooter of choice. They are usually pretty good in what they do, but as they are games in genre that has very little interest for me personally I don't find them to be very interesting games, nonetheless I would argue that they aren't game without substance but games with substance that has very little meaning to me. Which is why I seek my games elsewhere.

You get accuracy penalty in form of marksman talent that works only from distance and wood elves racial ability which also gives you accuracy bonus only against distant enemies. I don't remember was there any more talents or abilities that work only from distance. Arrows was feature on which community was quite split when it was debated if there is any merit in carrying normal arrows. I would guess that specialist arrows were one of those features that was cut out of the game because of lack of resources, as it was quite popular idea within community and developers if I remember correctly.

If you haven't seen people argue that Path of the Damned is too easy, which is hardest difficulty currently in the game. And only ways to make game even harder is to gimp yourself like trying to soloing the game, not using foods, not resting, etc. And this is already before any changes in game balance that probably make encounters even easier. So it is not issue that developers can/want ignore even if it don't matter to you. There are a zillion easy ways of making encounters harder at hardest difficulty that do NOT involve taking choice away from players by labeling spells as 'combat only'. When I want 'combat only spells', I play Diablo and the like, not a game that claims to be a successor to IE games. You probably didn't understood what I said in my post. So I would recommend reading it again couple times. I made a reply to your argument that many find the game already too easy at hardest difficulty level. Your "only ways to make game even harder is to gimp yourself" is a statement of the current situation, which does not make suddenly untrue the fact that there are several ways of inreasing difficulty exists, and being able to cast all spells always should put no limit on difficulty design *in general*. So I'm not arguing that you're wrong and the game is not too easy for many, I'm saying there are several ways to remedy this, even if casting of all spells all the time is enabled. I made just before you comment that I quoted first post about issues that Obsidian would need to address to make sure that pre-buffing don't cause issues in the game https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/75811-no-buffing-outside-of-combat-why/page-16?do=findComment&comment=1664853 As you can see I didn't any point say that pre-buffing can't be done or that blocking it prevents adding difficulty in the game, but that those are issues that need addressing if such feature is added in the game. But you post seemed to me implicating that difficulty issue is solved just by rising difficulty level from settings which I commented that some already find hardest difficulty in the game too easy and there aren't currently any other way for players to make game harder than by gimping themselves. My point was only address your claim that players can make game harder for themselves by changing the settings, by pointing out that there are those whom that is not possibility currently and Obsidian needs to take that account when they make feature changes in the game.

200 then there is no enemies that can hit you with attacks that target deflection, but 120-140 is quite enough for high level tank usually.

If you haven't seen people argue that Path of the Damned is too easy, which is hardest difficulty currently in the game. And only ways to make game even harder is to gimp yourself like trying to soloing the game, not using foods, not resting, etc. And this is already before any changes in game balance that probably make encounters even easier. So it is not issue that developers can/want ignore even if it don't matter to you. There are a zillion easy ways of making encounters harder at hardest difficulty that do NOT involve taking choice away from players by labeling spells as 'combat only'. When I want 'combat only spells', I play Diablo and the like, not a game that claims to be a successor to IE games. You probably didn't understood what I said in my post. So I would recommend reading it again couple times.

Not to be rude, but I wonder if you understand that UI designing and programming and pathfinding and companion AI are done by different people whose work don't influence each other in anyway. And when they promise that feature that allows you to change character portrait and sounds set during game will be in next patch don't mean that they don't improve or at least try to improve those AI and pathfinding issues even if they aren't in next patch, but instead it just is the fact that enabling changing portrait and sound set during the game is much faster feature to produce than fixes for AI or pathfinding, which may even need full overhaul before they work as good as they want and there is no point to introducing quick hacks that don't solve issues fully and have potential to create more issues than they solve.

If you haven't seen people argue that Path of the Damned is too easy, which is hardest difficulty currently in the game. And only ways to make game even harder is to gimp yourself like trying to soloing the game, not using foods, not resting, etc. And this is already before any changes in game balance that probably make encounters even easier. So it is not issue that developers can/want ignore even if it don't matter to you.

Allow pre-buff or not allow pre-buff I don't really care if game is designed such in mind. But I would say that in PoE as it is now pre-buffing would not work fine as there are several mechanics that cause it to be quite broken (we got taste of this during beginning of beta when you were able to use some of buffing abilities outside of combat because they weren't marked correctly). At least per encounter mechanic system for spells and abilities would cause problems, as it is mechanic that even wizards, priests, and druids have for some of their spells and abilities. This mechanic is allowed by having combat and non-combat states in the game where per encounter abilities return full when game hits in non-combat state, which currently means that if you use per encounter spell or ability out side combat you have per encounter limit full as soon as animation for spell or ability has stopped playing. This means if buff spells were allowed to cast outside combat that 9th level wizards, priest and druids could cast all their first spell level buff so that it don't limit them in anyway in combat and for 11th level they could do same for their second level buffs. And you could do that always with your per encounter buff abilities. Meaning that could be just activated in start of any combat regardless do you need them or not. Stealth state is currently implemented so that it don't end when you use spells or abilities if they target your party members, which would give you ability to pre-buff next to enemies, making it so that it really don't matter that those buffs have short duration. Non-mechanical issues from allowing pre-buffing that would rise Allowing pre-buffs would change how useful those classes that can pre-buff are compared to other classes, and as this forums are already full of threads that complain about class balance it is clear that such change in class balance should probably be addressed in some way or it will hinder some at least players enjoyment of the game. There is already lot of threads that complain that encounters in the game are too easy, allowing pre-buffing would probably make this issue even worse than it is now, so it probably would mean that encounters would need re-balancing to take accord such possibility, which probably would cause issue with party combinations that don't have buffing capabilities which would cause need to re-balance them also as it was one design goal to allow any sort of parties without needing any particular class in the party. There are also items that have per encounter buff abilities and allowing use of those outside of combat would also make those item much better and there probably would need to be at least discussions if such rises their power level too high.

Nah, it's always the rogue. Make the Monk companion in the expansion heartlessly evil instead. I'd prefer to see the evil Barbarian myself. I never have use for monks. When you think about a Monk in this game, though, they take wounds in order to give them out. A slightly suicidal sado-masochistic thrill-seeker who jumps into danger and loves liquifying enemy's internal organs with their punches practically writes itself. Forton is actually ninth companion in the game but he is just so evil that he don't even introduce himself to player let alone join them in their desperate quest to find sleep.

Until you lose at least four mouses and seven keyboards during one playthrough I will hold opinion that there is too little clicking during the game.

Game don't actually have that much text that you need read if you don't read books and backer NPCs. And quite lot of important lines are voice acted. But if you still find it too much I would recommend you to start reading hobby by for example reading young adult novels first (as they are usually written using simpler language and they are usually shorten than those that are classified as novels for adults) and when they become easy and fast read move in those adult novels and maybe read also some classic quite hard read books that they usually make you read in school. Eventually reading becomes easy even if you have dyslexia like me. But if reading hurts your eyes then I would recommend that you check your monitor's settings or buy new monitor that offers better picture, also letting optician check your eye sight would not hurt. If you find it difficulty to read because there are strange English words, then only option is to learn them, so that in future they aren't anymore strange If you find references to game's lore being too imperfect or not explained well enough then I recommend reading the lore guide book that they produced as it helps at least somewhat in those segments that game fails to explain. EDIT: If you find game's writing boring then best things that you can do is to learn to seek important points from the text or skip them, so that you can enjoy other part of the game, although with RPGs game usually lose most of it soul if you don't like its writing, as they usually are heavily designed around their writing.

On which moral standards you want Obsidian use to determine evilness of companions they write? Currently PoE tries it best to stay away of any universal moral standards and leave such determinations to player. They try their best to look morality from view point of their characters, meaning that one action is morally good for some characters and morally bad for some other characters. This kind lack of universal morality standards was one of their goals that they said they want to do with the game. So lack of your typical highlighted morally evil (and good) companions is purposeful design decision. But I have find morally questionable side from all the companions Of course every character also has their morally upright side. In my opinion this kind characters are much more interesting and feel more real than your typical caricature characters that you get in CRPGs as your companions.

Dual wielding is not realistic sorry. And a Pike is way less practical without mass formation. I'd rather have a 2h Axe/Warhammer in small scale melee. Dual wielding is real historic thing that has mentioned even in lots of European fighting treatises let alone Indian and Persian where such fighting was much more popular. And pike and spear are excellent dueling weapons because they give you massive reach advance over sword and most HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) practitioners would take one over sword in duel in any day if they have even lightest experience with them. But also two handed axes are real thing in historical martial arts from which pollaxe, halberd are most common in period that PoE mimics in it's weapons. But also battle-axes which fantastic variations this topic speaks are used all around globe in different cultures, in Europe they where quite popular in Scandinavia where they were continued to use along side with halberds until in start of 18th century. War hammers are one hand weapons what are actually already in the PoE, two handed hammers that some associate with war hammers in most cases sledge hammers or wooden mauls, which were used in battles in some cases but usually because their wielders didn't have better weapons, like for example English Longbow men who had wooden mauls with them so that they can put wooden pikes in ground to make it more difficult for cavalry and some infantry units to attack them are known to use those mauls in some battles where enemy infantry has surprised them. There are actual two handed hammers indented to be used as main weapon in battles like Bec de corbin or Lucerne hammer, but they aren't such weapons/tools that people usually mean when they speak about two handed hammers.

I think that three reason why PoE feels easier than let say IWD is that you have much harder time to build such party which members are mainly useless in fights, there is much less moments when you just outright die if you weren't prepared right, and you are able to get you party be over leveled towards most harder encounters by doing all the low level quests around Gilded Vale, as when you once get over leveled you mostly keep being overleveled (meaning that you are in many cases several levels higher than enemies that you face) until you find those few encounters that are meant mainly for 12 level parties, but aren't impossible with lower level parties. Only difficulty level that rises difficulty of individual enemies is Path of Damned as it also rises enemies stats where others difficulty levels only change how many enemies or by changing them higher level ones (like young wolves (level 1 wolf) to wolves (level 5 wolf) and wolves (level 5 wolf) to elder wolves (level 9 wolf)), which usually only means that you need to do bit more low level quest before you overlevel encounters. you will face. Also because pathing in the game is what it is more enemies don't necessary mean harder encounter as enemies block each other out from the fight. And I have also noticed that Stronghold can cause you get XP quite fast if RNG hits right spot as it randomly gives quest where you can sent your of party companions and some of those quest give XP bonus, and as it is given as percent bonus from quest that you did during that adventure it can be quite high. I am not sure if it should give that bonus XP to all the characters you control PC, and companions in party and companions that are in the keep, instead of just companions that are in the keep but it seem to do so or actually I think that it gives XP only to your party and members in the keep just get small percentage smaller XP amount that your PC has when you take them back in your party. But anyway I think that random additional XP you get from those keep quest is probably reason why some people like me have been able to reach level 12 in act II and some people can't reach it even when they do all the quest with guidance of strategy guide.

They seem to check only paladin order in those conversations not character class. They probably do same for priest when they check their deities.

Today we have changed our standard time definition to system that is no longer based on the rotation of the Earth around the Sun, but on atomic time. As a second is defined as: "9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom." and length other standard time units are based on that definition. I think it is more like we use 'atomic time' to more accurately measure the time it takes for the earth to revolve around the sun, imo... So-called 'atomic time' is merely more accurate as opposed to being radically different from other methods of telling time--revolutions around the sun are still 'years' and rotations of the earth on its axis are still 'days', etc. It isn't exact to the nanosecond, but that is generally accepted to be A-OK. (We build in Leap Year, etc., to correct for the small inaccuracies that accrue.) But the astronomical observations are still very much the basis for our calendar. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_year It is leap second system that keeps us (Universal Time) withing solar time http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second because Earth rotation speed varies, but if you read the article wholly you will see that time keeping currently isn't necessary most straightforward thing. Also Gregorian calendar was invented to keep date of Easter better in place. Anyway we adjust our time system constantly because of traditions to track time by using astronomical observations, but because those observations aren't accurate enough there is need to adjust our calendars/clocks so that they give us impression that they follow those observations. So do we base our calendar on those observations or do we just keep track on them and from out of convenience towards our traditions make it so that our observations match with our calendar, at least some of them.

I would argue that build diversity is quite good in this game compared to other class based CRPGs that there are. Only 3+ edition D&D games definitely offer greater class build diversity and even with them you could argue that most build options are just bad or they are based on ability to multi-class and especially on prestige classes. But I hope that expansion packs and possible sequel will add much more diversity in class builds and maybe new classes and something similar to prestige class system. Multi-classing base classes isn't necessary thing that I would like to see.