Elerond

Geralt's age has started to get him and he can't anymore shake those gut wounds as good off as when he was young man, also he has started to lose his flexibility and rolling in ground don't feel anymore that compelling to him, so he has decided that it is time to start to use actual armor instead of sexy leather suit.

I would say that at beginning it could potentially be handicap, but as you can boost your CON so much that it don't necessary impact late game I would say it has potential to be dirty min/maxing.

Never, didn't you hear that all the keys went to streamers and youtubers

Except as I said, unless you build for tankyness, it doesn't really contribute in a meaningful way at all, the PER Alone is an abysmal contribution to his potential survivability. Also, as a Wizard (with a CON of 10 no less) he's got the Endurance/Health pool of a snowflake. Slap heavy armour on him and take Talents to support his tankyness, he's going to up his survivability and make at least some use of that PER, but at that point he'll be a terrible, terrible Wizard due to the enormous action recovery he's going to suffer. Nevermind the fact that this feels extremely contrived and counter-intuitive to what (little) we know of Aloth, that is, a pretty standard wizard kind of character. I doubt he'll be fluffed to be some kind of battlemage, especially with those Attributes. Perception isn't just dead weight, it's also too little to even matter on it's own. And he doesn't have the Resolve or Constitution to back up mild support tanking. I also want to clarify that I don't think that Aloth should be changed. I think that the Attributes should be fixed. You can rise Con with items, rest bonuses and consumable bonuses at least 8 points and you also get items that give you endurance and health, so if you build him to be tank then you should probably also boost his con with those methods that allow you to do so. Also when you build him to be tank it don't matter as much that his action recovery is slower (although you can also boost his dex with together with his con if you feel that he need to cast more, which I don't think as wizards have such few spells per rest), as you put him in front line to soak those enemy hits, and also you have spells that add your DR (Spirit Shield) so that you can use lighter armor or make sure that you take minimal damage (which allows you to boost something else than con with those bonuses mentioned before), also you can use spells like for example Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff (which gives him quarter staff that helps him hit better and heals him) and Combusting Wounds which causes additional burn damage to any enemy in are that takes wound (which is helps when you don't do singular high damage hits but lots of small damage hits). So on and so forth you can make him work decently and I find such bit unoptimal quite fun to play, but that is me. But tank is not only role where higher perception works for the build, for example you can use him support roles by getting spells like Chill Fog (which is Foe AoE that does freeze damage, cause enemies become blinded and has possibility interrupt them for 0.5 seconds), Thrust of Tattered Veils (which is single target spell that does crush damage and has possibility interrupt enemy for 1 second, useful against enemy big hitters, casters and those that are armed with firearms), Bewildering Spectacle (which is foe aoe that causes enemies become confused and has ability to interrupt them for 0.5 seconds) , Curse of Blackened Sight (which is Aoe that causes blindness and has ability to interrupt for 0.5 seconds.) and Blast talent (which gives foe AoE for your attacks if you use wand, rod or scepter). Interrupt is not most reliable method to lower enemy dps, but it work relatively well, especially when you use spells/abilities that lower enemy concentration. But what comes to Aloth character I can't say anything, but I think that battlemage can play both tank and combat support roles.

Who would that be and how many views? http://www.twitch.tv/cohhcarnage He seem to have gone to break now, but he had over 8000 viewers for his stream.

Currently biggest streamer of game who actually has more viewers than rest of current streamers together seem to like game very much and his chat also seems to like the game. And other streamers that I have looked seem to also have positive feelings for the game.

It is not worthless, it is actually one most useful attributes to boost in character creation for many builds. This is because high deflection means that enemies have harder time to hit and crit your character. Perception works also for some cipher builds, like mind control focused support-tank. Who specializes in debuffs, mind control spells and their ability stand in front line hacking enemies to generate focus (of course this is not most efficient build for cipher, but it is quite fun). In my opinion people should test more fun builds (builds that try to do strange gimmicks) instead of focusing ability to end fights fast as possible, because then they could find new funner (at least it has been such for me) aspect of PoE's fights. The problem (in so far that it's actually a problem at least) is that the system favours specialization. Unless you are specifically stacking, for example, Deflection, it's effect will be relatively small as the Accuracy of the opponents increases. I enjoy gimmick-y builds, myself, I really do, but in some cases (such as Aloth's) it's really not about gimmicky builds. It's that, using this case as an example, it really isn't all that gimmick-y. Gimmick-y builds would be feasible if the Attributes supported it, like having specialized builds that doesn't do things necessarily worse, just differently than someone else. Such as if Perception still added Range and Accuracy (which isn't something I necessarily support) or if Intellect wasn't such a consolidated caster stat, you'd maybe actually end up with a Wizard that could strike hard, far, and accurate (Max MIG and PER) but actually had terrible duration on their abilities (shallow INT). As it currently is, PER isn't gimmicky for a Wizard, it's bad. Utterly worthless. It's still possible to play the game, it's not like Aloth is complete and utterly worthless because he's sub-optimal. But the issue with Attributes can't be excused with "Eh, the game can still be completed with ****ty stats". I want to have balanced attributes because I want to be able to build wacky things, including the low-PER Ranger and the high-INT Barbarian. It is not worthless as it allows you to make Aloth a tanky front line wizard that uses those self buff, cone and melee spells. It also gives him ability slow enemies down with his attacks and spells as he can interrupt enemies, this works if you use him in more support role.

It depends what you want your character to do, but that will work any build that focuses on damage, although if you decide to use slower weapons like arquebus I would switch might and dex, as dex will add your damage output more as you can shoot more.

Divinity Original Sin uses Larian's in-house engine. But anyway Unity is general purpose game engine that can used to make every sort of games, this sadly don't mean that you will have easy time to move implementations from one game to another. But when it comes to PoE and TToN there are much more possibilities with moving content from one game to another as inXile use modified versions of PoE's implementations in many things.

It is not worthless, it is actually one most useful attributes to boost in character creation for many builds. This is because high deflection means that enemies have harder time to hit and crit your character. Perception works also for some cipher builds, like mind control focused support-tank. Who specializes in debuffs, mind control spells and their ability stand in front line hacking enemies to generate focus (of course this is not most efficient build for cipher, but it is quite fun). In my opinion people should test more fun builds (builds that try to do strange gimmicks) instead of focusing ability to end fights fast as possible, because then they could find new funner (at least it has been such for me) aspect of PoE's fights.

Perception give currently bonuses to deflection and interrupt. Perception is good for tank builds, but it also works for support builds, as it gives character ability lower damage potential of the enemies, by slowing down their actions.

He seem to have stats that are quite fine for support, crowd control and second tank builds, making him hard hitter would be much more trickier, but even it could be achieved with right itemization and consumables+rest bonuses, especially if supported by other members of team. And of course he is fine in many combination roles.

You will able to download (or more accurately steam will download it automatically if you have marked game to be installed/downloaded) when it is released in steam and with high likelihood it will be released same time with game itself.

Cabinets aren't digital. Work that goes to physical and digital product is same. Replication of digital products is easier, which makes it easier to copy them effortlessly, but I would not ever say that Obsidian for example should not be able to sell their digital products to people or stick their watermark (like for example opening logo) in them, just because they are digital. Although when it comes to pricing sold copies I think there are valid reasons to except that digital copies of products don't cost same as individually made physical originals. Obsidian puts their "watermark" on opening logo outside the game. If they were to have that huge watermark in-game, we would have a problem. Now if she would put her signature on the corner of the painting, no one would complain. Think about that analogy. No, Obsidian puts their water mark in game in such place where everybody will definitely see it before they see rest of their product, same way like she did (although in her case people can see rest of her product same time), they just have convenience of much bigger product that their water mark is lesser hindrance for person using their product. Signature in corner of painting would be more equivalent for Obsidian to put their logo in game's end credits (place where people viewing their product don't necessary see it and even if they see it they probably see it after seeing rest of their product). EDIT: And yes some would still complain even if she had put her signature in corner, as for some people it seemed to be unthinkable to credit one's own work

Cabinets aren't digital. Work that goes to physical and digital product is same. Replication of digital products is easier, which makes it easier to copy them effortlessly, but I would not ever say that Obsidian for example should not be able to sell their digital products to people or stick their watermark (like for example opening logo) in them, just because they are digital. Although when it comes to pricing sold copies I think there are valid reasons to except that digital copies of products don't cost same as individually made physical originals.

1) Obsidian needs PoE to sell like hotcakes or they could go under. 2) It's a product. It's getting sold. What the hell are you smoking? That is not 100% accurate, when they did go in Kickstater there was loom of under going closing in, at least in some sense, but that was avoided thanks to successful KS and also extension that Ubisoft gave for The Stick of Truth and then Obsidian has been able to get contracts at least for 3 games and at least one consultant contract (this is according to information that other people have collected and what Obsidian has told in this board and other sites, as I don't have any first hand knowledge about subject). Backers are funders not people that have pre-ordered the game. For first glance it could seem same, but there are some very major differences, like for example we don't have ability cancel our order like people that pre-order games have and also Obsidian don't have similar ability cancel or change products that are coming to as like they could do with pre-orders. Also failure to produce promised goods would make Obsidian much more liable to lawsuit than what is case in your typical pre-orders. But like investing or pre-ordering, backing games or other products via crowd sourcing services don't make you owner of product or even give you any rights what so ever over the product, that is not given you in your initial contract or any possible additional contract that you do with developer of the product (with possible exceptions of those rights that you get with getting license to use product and what the format which you get the product gives you according to your local and international laws).

Both BG and BG2 had bugs when they were released and they both still do have unfixed bugs. Like there is some instances where quest triggers don't work right, quest ending conversations that you can loop for infinite xp, items which bonuses didn't disappeared when you took them of which in one instance in BG gave you ability to infinitively drop your AC. There is lot of instances where there are problems with how enemies are loaded to maps. There were doors that didn't always opened. There were also some instances where game just crash in some machines. And so on and so forth. They weren't most buggiest games that there has been, but they also weren't bug free games that didn't need patching to work as intended.

Hah... Talk to WL2 backers about how well physical item fulfillment went. I suspect their European distribution contacts alone make involvement with Paradox well worth whatever percentage Obsidian is paying them. inXile had Deep Silver as their distributor partner, who is German publisher/distributor, just to point out that such partnerships don't prevent problems with shipments of physical rewards especially when it comes to complex reward tiers. This is an important part of the process. The majority of hype nowadays is generated by folks streaming games right before they are released. This is just the reality of the situation. You shouldn't view streamers in any different light than reviewers. They serve much of the same function - informing users of the game (and giving them a glimpse before they purchase) and generating hype for the release. They also work off of the same principles. In the same way that reviewers won't publish reviews on games if they don't get exclusive access, streamers won't stream new games if they don't have exclusive access. Obviously that isn't universal, but it is a good rule to follow. This isn't to denigrate the backers or what they mean to this project. We love you guys and what you do for this project more than you can know. But, this is the game that has to be played for us to be as successful as we can be. I agree that streamers/youtubers are a BIG part of the process, but unless Paradox are giving you guys some kind of financial bonus on pre-order sales there's no reason why they should get to play the game 4 days before the backers. The success of a game isn't defined in the first few days prior to release. Look a Larian studios with Divinity: Original Sin. The big name streamers and youtubers will still do what they do even if it's on the 26th. And why would the review embargo be different from the streamers? Doesn't make any sense to me, man. Also I have a youtube channel. 1500 subs. Can I get a press release version? I can confirm some sales I sent your way already with my BB videos. You can also Youtube search Divinity Original Sin and you'll see my work in the number 4 slot. You can also youtube search Pillars of Eternity and find me in the 8 slot with my latest BB video. Kthx in advance brospice. Divinity Original Sin would had sent review copies for the press if they would had gotten their release version working before launch. Divinity Original Sin also about half year long beta/early access period when everybody had access to their game's not finished builds. Larian also invited lots of streamers and youtubers to visit their office and play game or they played game with them online before early access/beta started. Good first day sales generate news about game and such news will make more people to be aware of game which usually generates more sales. I would guess that Paradox handless distribution of press version of game so if you are interested of it you should contact Paradox and ask one. One thing about Divinity Original Sin furthermore should be remembered, which is that it game out in time period when there was no recent big releases and not any big releases in near future, which made it get much more attention from gamers and press than what it would have gotten in any other time with same release planning. If we look for example Wasteland 2 from inXile that come out couple months later with about similar plan, we will see that Wasteland 2 generated much less sales than what Divinity Original Sin did even tough it was much more popular during its Kickstarer and it should noted that during it release Wasteland 2 generated also less news than Divinity Original Sin.

Wizards is most flexible class in game, you can do tank, single target dps, crowd control and support builds wizard with ability change their role on fly by changing what spells they have in their use. They aren't necessary best character for any singular build but what makes them great is their ability to be decent in any role and change roles on fly, which is something that other classes aren't able to do in meaningful degree. Cipher is excellent single target dps class which can also be build as support-dps or tank-support roles so that they work decently. Both classes are heavy maintenance in any role you pick for them. When you think classes usefulness you should note that there are four major roles (support, tank, dps and crowd control) than you probably need in your party in some capacity and you will have party of six characters. Wizard is excellent addition to party where you have four characters that have focused on singular role, as you can make them become additional character in any of those roles depending on what kind party composition you need in any given encounter. So party with four fully specialized characters and one or two wizards has good flexibility to deal with any encounter that you face as you can make wizards help in any of the major roles depending on what your party needs more in any particular encounter. So both classes have things where they excel and you can find place for both of them in your party depending on what your party composition is.

This conversation reminds me lots of arguments that I have had with people over ability to save freely in RPGs.

More than ever before, which probably isn't that surprising as there is more people playing games than ever before.

I'm genuinely curious about this, though--I was actually surprised how much he emphasized community involvement, more than many of the other devs I've spoken with over the years. It seems like they pay a good deal of attention to feedback--is that not the case? *prepares to bolt if bringing this up is like leaping into the hornet's nest* --Arv http://twitch.tv/arvaneleron They take heed on community feedback, which of course don't mean that they always change things like some members of community would like and usually they don't defend their choices which frustrates some members of community, but as Josh said if it is somewhat straightforward to offer option to toggle things so that people can customize their experience as they want they usually offer such toggle in options. But often things that some community members want can't simply made as optional toggle, then they have often offer some sort compromise solution, like for example they first had only quest objective based xp system, but some community members were quite loud about how they want to get xp from combat and some other things like lock picking and disarming traps, and so they changed system so that you can now get minor xp from those tasks. But sometimes they just decide that their version is better for the game or that they don't have resources to offer implementation that community members want. It should also noted that it has been rare occurrences where community has been somewhat single minded about some specific issue and those times Obsidian has always tried to solve the issue. But usually things are so that community is quite split how they feel about issues and usually loudest voice (most post) always belongs to those who have issues with current implementation.

There are no race that directly has Asian influence on them at least not yet. Monk in question was(maybe is) belong is Savannah folk, which are olive skinned and look similiar to Mesoamericans and their outfits are Bulgarian- and Ethopian-inspired (in their original culture in the game). Also he was early character concept and we don't know if he is actually in the game, but even if he is he isn't companion character for the player so even he exist he don't play role of token black guy. Monk class is heavily influenced by D&D's monk class which is influenced heavily by Shaolin monks. Although there are some non-twists that try make them non-stereotypical, but don't necessary succeed perfectly. As monks in PoE are heavily into mortification of flesh and their abilities are fueled by damage they take in combat.

I've seen it. I just haven't been able to make a character that's anywhere close to unplayable, other than the ranger in one of the BB's which was because the ranger class was borderline unplayable. Again, there are plenty of balance issues there for sure, but nothing close to genuine trap choices à la quarterstaff specialization in IWD or, say, Toughness, Great Fortitude, a couple of Skill Focuses and CHA 18/STR 10 for a D&D3 fighter. As far as I can tell anyway. You can build characters that aren't fun to play and they are awful in every aspect of combat, making them just burden for rest of party. And I disagree you with ranger, as ranger is pretty good class, even though they aren't necessary best in what they do, but they have some quite fun aspects on them and they work fine as somewhat passive ranged damage dealers if you take bit care how you use their pet.

As you see I am very qualified to desing traffic solutions