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vattghern

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Posts posted by vattghern

  1. It's strange you bring up Arcanum as a counter-example because that was one of the most grimdark (grimdarkest?) RPGs in my mind before grimdark became all the rage. Sure, it has some quirky moments, but the overall atmosphere is very melancholy and depressing, enhanced in particular by the soundtrack.

     

    There's very few RPGs that pull that off in a way that has me glued to the screen start to finish (pretty much Arcanum, PST, and most recently Witcher 3).

    • Like 2
  2.  

    Why do people say NPCs don't get Faith & Conviction? Pretty sure my Pallagina has it.

     

    They have it, but it's not affected by Reputation/Dispositions. The same goes for CNPC priests.

     

    Only the main character is affected, for some asinine reason.

    Obviously so your PC's dialogue choices don't interfere with party members' skill bonuses.

     

    IIRC the tip during char creation made it sound like it's therefor always maxed out for NPCs; is it actually on the lowest level instead?

  3.  

    All my loading times are like 3 seconds, only using a HDD, 8 gbs or ram and an AMD 6900 series. 

     

    Pretty sure anyone complaining about the loading times either needs to upgrade or fix their own computer or it's a bug.

    If that is the case, then I'm pretty sure it's a bug. Here are my specs:

     

    Crucial MX100 512GB (SSD)

    Core i7-2720QM (2.2 GHz)

    Radeon 6770M

    8 GB RAM

    Windows 7 64-bit

     

    The save file is around 3MB in size. I timed it and it takes around 15 seconds to load and around 5 seconds to save. Area transitions likewise take around 15 seconds. Unless it is doing some heavy compression/decompression under the hood, I don't understand what can be taking so long. Also, if I click through the opening screens on startup, it takes around 3 seconds merely to load the list of saves. The SSD is operating properly in all other contexts (e.g. a cold boot of Windows takes about the same time as loading a PoE game, maybe even a little less) so I think there is something wrong here.

     

    That are the save/load times I get on my system - with a 7200RPM HDD. Shouldn't a SSD speed it up by like a lot?

  4. Heh, no.

     

    Ridiculously overpowered is the chanter phrase that gives a fair bit more than that to everyone in the party. Every level of the big dungeon I ask - "does it blend?", and find, yes.. yes, it sure does.

    The chant that adds like 26 fire damage? It doesn't actually add a flat amount to each attack, more like a percentage. If you click on the attacks in the log you'll see how much it really added and it's far lower than 26.

  5.  

     

    Which act is the longest surely depends on when you decide to progress the main story. I'm still in Act 1, doing all side content I can find, and my dudes are almost lvl 10.

    ...

     

    Hoooooooooooooooooow?

    Seriously, ACT I is over in Caerd Noa, there's absolutely no way at all to gain lvl 10 already before going there simply by lack of content, around 10 or less maps.

    So I somehow doubt this.

     

    I don't think it's possible for a group but what if you solo it? It should be possible then right?

     

    Um, I'm at the part where you gather certain clues for a certain lady concerning a certain metallic implement. You saying this is act 2 already and I missed the transition?

  6.  

    Besides the 4th and last stat, what does that have to do with kill xp?

     

    The drop off from Act 1 to Act 2 is gigantic! Are there only two Acts in the game?

    4 Acts, but the second seems to be the longest and the fourth is very short. Dropping off after the beginning is normal in games, but keep in mind that Pillars has been out only for a week. Yes, it's Easter, so many people have more time to play - but others spend this time with family. In my country Easter commonly means spending two days sitting at a table. ;) I finished Act 2 yesterday, I'm not surprised others aren't there yet.

     

    Which act is the longest surely depends on when you decide to progress the main story. I'm still in Act 1, doing all side content I can find, and my dudes are almost lvl 10.

  7.  

     

     

    Mowing down dozens of copy&paste cultists and getting nothing out of it but trash loot made me sad. Removing combat XP achieves nothing in this case, you'll still mow them down to the last man in hopes they hide something interesting (they don't).

     

    On the other hand, you get huge piles of XP for progressing quests in the most trivial manner.

     

    Lower quest XP, make up for it with combat XP. Not like you can grind mobs forever anyway because nothing respawns.

     Lockpicking XP could be removed entirely far as I'm concerned, it leads to the very munchkin gameplay JES supposedly wanted to avoid (pick lock instead of using key to get XP).

     

    Beastiary xp wouldn't make this ideal, once an entry is full you don't get combat xp. Also, humans never give combat xp.

    But they should. At a reduced rate after the bestiary entry is complete, maybe 50% or whatever, but they definitely should give XP all the way so killing stuff doesn't feel as pointless as it does now. If it needs to be rationalized, I'm sure you can still learn something about fighting wolves even after you've killed a dozen of them.

     

     

    This is an example of how some people profoundly do not understand why there isn't combat XP.

     

    Let me explain - the reason there isn't combat XP, per se, is so that people who avoid combat and try and find rational, safe, clever solutions to problems do not get penalized for not just murdering everything and everyone in sight. Pillars is a good game in that it rewards play that isn't a total mindless slaughter, unlike a lot of CRPGs, especially older ones. Changing it so combat always rewards XP would be completely missing the point, and would turn the game back into that sort of ridiculous "Even peasants are worth 15XP!" butchery. It promotes the sort of idiotic and immersion-breaking play where you're more rewarded for solving a quest the clever way (avoiding combat etc.) AND THEN going back and slaughtering everyone mindlessly for no reason (something common in older CRPGs), than for actually just being successful.

     

    I understand the intent, but POE simply isn't the game where such an approach makes sense. POE plays like a hack & slash, yet combat awards no XP. This is wrong.

     

    Taking the Skaen temple/ruin as an example, could you name all the creative ways a player can use to get from entrance to endboss? From what I saw you can either a) slaughter every cultist as you explore the place looking for something interesting (and there is precious little to discover there); b) slaughter only half the cultists by using a different path to reach the boss. No thinking outside the box, no puzzle-solving skills involved. Just the number of dead cultists varies. There is no incentive not to slaughter them, nothing changes in the final confrontation, nobody cares in the end how many cultists died during your escapade there.

     

    I do appreciate that you can deal with the foozle in an amiable way and not feel forced to kill him afterwards for XP (ofc I killed him anyway for potential loot) but that doesn't make up for the ultimately unrewarding trash massacre along the way.

  8.  

    Mowing down dozens of copy&paste cultists and getting nothing out of it but trash loot made me sad. Removing combat XP achieves nothing in this case, you'll still mow them down to the last man in hopes they hide something interesting (they don't).

     

    On the other hand, you get huge piles of XP for progressing quests in the most trivial manner.

     

    Lower quest XP, make up for it with combat XP. Not like you can grind mobs forever anyway because nothing respawns.

     Lockpicking XP could be removed entirely far as I'm concerned, it leads to the very munchkin gameplay JES supposedly wanted to avoid (pick lock instead of using key to get XP).

     

    Beastiary xp wouldn't make this ideal, once an entry is full you don't get combat xp. Also, humans never give combat xp.

    But they should. At a reduced rate after the bestiary entry is complete, maybe 50% or whatever, but they definitely should give XP all the way so killing stuff doesn't feel as pointless as it does now. If it needs to be rationalized, I'm sure you can still learn something about fighting wolves even after you've killed a dozen of them.

  9. Mowing down dozens of copy&paste cultists and getting nothing out of it but trash loot made me sad. Removing combat XP achieves nothing in this case, you'll still mow them down to the last man in hopes they hide something interesting (they don't).

     

    On the other hand, you get huge piles of XP for progressing quests in the most trivial manner.

     

    Lower quest XP, make up for it with combat XP. Not like you can grind mobs forever anyway because nothing respawns.

     Lockpicking XP could be removed entirely far as I'm concerned, it leads to the very munchkin gameplay JES supposedly wanted to avoid (pick lock instead of using key to get XP).

  10.  

    You can not slit his throat.

     

    If the choice is between slitting his throat or leaving him sick and dying all alone in an empty dungeon (because I slaughtered all his friends) I might decide slitting his throat is the nicer thing to do.

     

    This. Though I made it to lvl 5 and still haven't found a cure for him (or his mates) and it seems quite gruesome to leave him where he is.

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