Elerond

Character's are capped to level 12.

Beetles on hard are pretty challenging in my experience. That might not be the case on other difficulties, but as I have no intention of playing lower than hard, I'm going to say Beetles are still pretty tough. As to the state of the game, I think we're going to have to wait till after the release of the expansion pack and some major patches to that before we get to highly polished. Would like to be pleasantly surprised, but am going to be realistic. They're predictable and very CC-able. I killed them with 3 characters on hard - granted though that they were very power-gamed characters(Paladin Tank, Chanter, Druid). The Wood Beetles go down fast. The Adra's lightning attack you can interrupt with a knock down or whatever, and those who aren't engaged can just run out of the way of wherever it's being aimed. The stone beetles aren't very dangerous, if you have at least one or two decent deflection characters. Maybe I've just done them so many times though that it's become easy for me. They did give me trouble the first time I was trying out the beta. And you can cheese them, as most of them have territorial behaving pattern, meaning that they don't chase character after certain point if they loose sight of them, which allowed me to kill all of them with solo-run chanter in PoD difficulty.

The merchants have infinite gold..? Why are they making mistakes that both Icewind Dale and Fallout: New Vegas got right? They had first limited gold for merchants but then people complained it and they changed it to infinite.

So, what? They sent out the beta build to have people check for bugs that don't exist anymore? Sounds... useful. Because they are still bugs to be found and a day 0 patch to be filled with fixes. Yes? So you don't distract people with stuff already fixed. That way they can focus on the still existing ones that need work. The logic behind what you are suggesting makes no sense. Not updating the beta build again with two weeks left is perfectly sensible, but there is zero reason to send out an old build rather the current build for the final beta cycle. They don't lean on backer beta players to find bugs, but get feed back of features and gameplay, which are things that they probably will not change anymore at this point before release. If players of backer beta find bugs that their QA team has not yet found it is added bonus. They released this latest patch for backer beta because lots of people have asked one last patch before release for couple weeks now and we have paid extra for that privilege that we get to play version of the game that is still under development. So in short they probably don't aim to gain much with this latest patch, but they released it because they felt obligated to do so and they know that it pleases us even though we complain about things in it.

In my understanding adventure limit was added to prevent player create unlimited number custom companions to replace dead companions. So now you can only create 8 custom companions.

I have played beta with all sort of party compositions (although not yet in newest build), and I have always succeeded to go through all content that beta has to offer, so even though some builds and party compositions are clearly better than others it don't mean that other builds and compositions aren't viable (which was in my understanding the goal that Josh tried to achieve). But of course it is bit sad that number of optimal builds are quite low and that they heavily support min-maxing both in attributes and talents.

So this came out of nowhere. Dare I say the REAL Beyond Civilization? I would say no, game don't have enough depth to be real 4x game. My first impression after first game is that game is somewhat small scope strategy game that focuses on tactical space combat. In my opinion strategy game part lacks too much depth to be interesting for long run, but in other hand tactical space battles are very entertaining and they have quite lot depth in them.

Sad news. Rest in peace Terry, you were extraordinary person and your books have meant lot for me for decades.

I have played around with ranger in current beta to look if there is any good builds for them, which is still ongoing experiment, but I have come to realize that rangers animal companion is extremely useful because they are currently immortal, which make them excellent scouts (especially wolf) as you can sent them look enemies without any fear and you can use them to clear traps and use them to lure enemies in your ambushes and traps and they also work as meat shield to stop enemies for bit when your party shoots their opening salvo.

Ooh I didn't know that Dyrford village is such horrid place for bakers, I would recommend immediate unionization, so that bakers have better ability to demand respect they deserve or leave those Dyrfordians without their daily bread.

I think that they have watched too much news and talk shows with their sent your opinion in this hashtag feeds

In both Steam and GOG allows you download and play game in any operating system that game supports, so in case of PoE you can play it on Windows, Mac OS and Linux

The ID@Xbox games all have Xbox achievements, leaderboards, etc don't they? Except Minecraft, for some reason? The one game on there that's owned by Microsoft! ID@Xbox (Independent Developers @ Xbox) is program that supports indie devs to produce games to MS platforms (previously it was only for Xbox One), like giving them SDKs for Xbox One. Windows 10 has integrated Xbox app that gives game developers possibility to use Xbox Live services like achievements and MS also promises to bring cross-platform play functionality which will allow developers to make multiplayer modes where PC and Console players can play against each other and universal app platform which make it possible develop apps and games that people can access from every Windows devices (phone, tablet, pc, xbox). so with the announcement, anyone know what we're getting? I can't imagine PoE is coming out on consoles, is it? Announcement was that PoE will come to Windows 10. For me it looks like two way marketing deal. Obsidian gets PoE highlighted in MS marketing for their ID@Xbox program and MS gets to show how they have lots of games in their indie program.

Sales are lower in the second one, it was simplified to show that at the end of a project, money from kickstarter has an equal numeric effect as money from release day sales. Also, its not uncommon for major games to sell swag, and the cut kickstarter takes is lower than the cut most of the major distributors take. Of course game is more profitable if it making costs are lower and revenue is 4 million dollars higher. Which was my point your scenarios aren't equal so comparing them don't actually tell us anything. My point with swag and kickstarter cut was that even when project gets 4 million dollars from kickstarter it's actual budget is lower, meaning that you should not compare ks revenue to actual game budget as they aren't same.

Yes it is, or at least I find it to be very useful.

When you pause game it shows all engagements for all the characters, in real time it shows engagements for character (friend or foe) which you hover over with mouse. It would be nice if you could look engagement information for all character by pressing for example Tab.

Here is example picture that shows how engagement works when enemy can engage all your characters As you can see enemy is not flanked even though he fight against three of my characters, and he will get disengagement attack against every one of them if they leave from his engagement zone. But situation becomes much more on your favor when you example cause him become prone by using fighter's knockdown ability As you can see he loses his engagement against all of your characters and he becomes flanked making him very vulnerable for rogues attacks. Here is more complex engagement where we can see how fighters ability to engage multiple enemies comes handy and how you can engage enemies even though you aren't directly attacking them As you can see fighter can engage both enemies at same time allowing rogue and monk (Loo) to flank second enemy. Here you can see that monk(Loo) can move around both enemies freely and still engage second whole time Monk (Loo) don't change enemy that she engages until she attacks another enemy if she keeps enemy that she is engaging inside of her engagement zone. Your character's stops engaging enemy if they move so far away them that they are out of their engagement zone

Development costs were (mostly) paid for. This means they can sell the game for (almost) pure profit. I don't see how simple addition and substitution is so hard to understand. Profit = Total Money In - Total Money Out. Total Money In = Kickstarter + Other Prerelease Sales + Release Sales. Therefore: Profit = (Kickstarter + Other Sales) - Total Money Out. Let's say they spent all their kickstarter money on game development (which they did), and then they made $6m in released sales. Profit = ($4m +$6m) - $4m Profit = $6m Then, lets imagine a world without kickstarter, where Obsidian fronts its own cash and makes it up in release sales. They still make $6m in release sales. Profit = $6m - $4m Profit = $2m What? Profit changed? It's almost like money from Kickstarter is just a different source of income that still affects profits. Yes, it's spent making the game, but that just means that the creator doesn't incur a loss in the creation of the game. Come on, this is simple addition. You should take account that in your second scenario total sales of game are lower than in first scenario as you don't take account that those Kickstarter backers also get copy of the game. And also in second scenario development of game cost more than in first scenario as you don't take account money cut that Kickstarter and payment provider took and that some of that Kickstarter money goes towards backer rewards like t-shirts, novellas, guides, cloth maps, mouse pads, play cards, etc.

In that scenario if B don't have ability or talent that gives them ability to engage multiple enemies they engage only first enemy, meaning that C for example can freely move in and out B engagement area, but both A and C get disengagement attack if B moves away and B has flanked status as long they are in both A's and C's engagement area.

I did this two years ago, so all information in it isn't up to date.

Thanks man you just saved me some bucks, god knows I hate DLCs and while I love Paradox I am not going to support that kind of BS In their previous games (Cities in Motion 1& 2) Colossal Order (developer of the game) offered only non-gameplay dlc, like new vehicle models, models for famous land marks, maps inspired by real world cities. They also support community mods for similar things (vehicle reskins, new models, new maps). Of course one can't be sure that they continue same policies in this game, although they have promised extensive mod support for Cities: Skylines.

The ID@Xbox games all have Xbox achievements, leaderboards, etc don't they? Except Minecraft, for some reason? The one game on there that's owned by Microsoft! ID@Xbox (Independent Developers @ Xbox) is program that supports indie devs to produce games to MS platforms (previously it was only for Xbox One), like giving them SDKs for Xbox One. Windows 10 has integrated Xbox app that gives game developers possibility to use Xbox Live services like achievements and MS also promises to bring cross-platform play functionality which will allow developers to make multiplayer modes where PC and Console players can play against each other and universal app platform which make it possible develop apps and games that people can access from every Windows devices (phone, tablet, pc, xbox).

I would guess that means that Obsidian/Paradox/Both are participate in Microsoft's ID@Xbox program and Pillars of Eternity will work on Windows 10 when it is released and all parties involved use this opportunity to market their products and services.

They would need to drop damage bonus that backstap gives, or rise level when you get those abilities. Now backstap works somewhat similarly that it worked in BG, with that exception that you need to start combat with backstap attack as stealth ends when combat starts, but that is somewhat compensated by rogues sneak attack, which consistently give them damage boost. Shadowing Beyond is it own ability that has great synergy with backstap. In my opinion rogues don't need boost, given that they fix stealth.

Encounters are build around normal difficulty level, and dropping difficulty to easy changes some enemies in encounter to ones that should be easier to deal with, and hard difficulty changes some enemies to ones that should be harder to deal with. Path of damned difficulty puts all enemies from every difficulty settings to map. Enemies have levels, but they are all predetermined and they don't change during game, so encounter with level 2 monsters have level 2 monsters even if you come across it in late game. There are some ways to determine how difficult monsters are in game One classification that they seem to use is to have terms that go from soft to hard or maybe from cheap to expensive wood beetle, stone beetle and andra beetle Another classification is to give adjective that gives you indication is monster easier or harder than its default version young wolf, wolf, elder wolf Another classification is use 'known' specie evolution chains wurm, drake, dragon Then they have monsters with Eora specific names, which gives indication that they are more special enemies Also they seem to go with size matters design, meaning that smaller ones are easier than bigger enemies