Alweth

When equipped, Kana's Turban's +1 Intellect suppresses Drinking Horn of Moderation's +2 Intellect. As I understand things, this is the opposite of how it should work. If you have the drinking horn equipped, unequipping Kana's Turban increases your intellect by 1.

I don't know if this is a bug, or what, but when charmed enemies turn hostile from being charmed, any player controlled characters that were attacking them stop attacking them. This is a very counter-intuitive, unhelpful, and annoying behavior. It would be nice if characters never stopped attacking enemies that have turned hostile from friendly.

Obsidian, please add a binding to just pause the game, and not unpause it. It's super annoying to accidentally unpause an auto-pause when you're trying to pause. You have a bind for scouting on or off, so you should definitely have a button for Pause On or something.

Someone else suggested something like this elsewhere to replace the weapon specialization talents: Weapon Specialization - +6 Accuracy for any 3 weapon types of your choice. Can be taken multiple times but only for new weapon types.Some names might need work: You Can Wear Medium Armor - +4 DR that stacks with armor but cannot exceed 12 DR combined, not counting magical enhancements. Please Wear Medium Armor - Constitution and Strength each grant -2% and -1% armor action speed penalty (respectively). Please Wear Light Armor - Perception and Intellect each grant -1% armor action speed penalty. Light Armor grants +2 DR. I haven't played a barbarian or monk but they might need: Barbarians and Monks Can Tank Without Heavy Armor - +8 DR that doesn't stack with non-enchantment armor DR and -10% armor action speed penalty. Barbarian or Monk only. Tanks Can Deal Some Damage Too - Armor action speed penalty is reduced by the percentage of base Endurance (ie. without Constitution mod) that you've been damaged this encounter / 2, maximum -25%. Armor Wearers Can Deal Damage Too - Melee attacks can't crit but have increased damage equal to your net armor action speed penalty, maximum of 30%. Damage Dealers Can Wear Armor Too - Light and Medium Armor only apply their action speed penalty if you've been attacked by a single-target or melee attack within the last 2 seconds. Some non-armor-related ones: Blood Magic - May use a per-encounter abilities or spell that you have no remaining uses of at a endurance cost that increases based on the level of the ability and the number of times you've used this talent since resting. (This talent is broken with the current broken rest-whenever-you-want system, but if that gets fixed, something like this could make sense.) Darker Blood Magic - Like Blood Magic but only usable once per rest and only on per-rest abilities. For Wizard: Area Finesse - You can reduce the AoE of all your abilities as much as you want while targeting. More Area Finesse - You can switch the position (but not the radius) of the foe only and friend or foe areas of your AoE. Based on: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/78570-animal-companion-should-be-a-series-of-talents-not-a-class-feedback-on-the-ranger/ Baby Pet - Get a pet-slot style baby animal pet that doesn't do anything. Trained Pet - Upgrades your Baby Pet to a ranger-style pet that can only do disengagement attacks. Animal Companion - Upgrades Trained Pet to a full-on ranger pet. After this you can select other pet enhancement talents from the ranger class. (Also, get rid of the ranger class.) And one last one: Epic Abstraction - Might grants bonuses to Action Speed, Duration, and Areas of Effect. Dexterity and Intellect do not. Might is renamed Pwnage. Resolve and Lore conversation options now require Pwnage instead. Can only be taken by Ciphers.

The first idea is horrible. It is roughly equivalent to "stop playing PoE for today, but keep the window open." The second idea is very meh. The third idea, however, seems genius to me. I can imagine several different reputations which one could gain based on combat choices instead of dialogue choices. There should be a murderhobo reputation for wiping out every (or almost every) enemy you meet. This would only make sense, of course, if enemies could lose morale and run away when it was clear that they'd lost.

I don't know if anyone ever complained about it, but it certainly led to some strange situations. Player is about to attack a lich. Aerie: Player, you really need to know right now that I'm angsty! I think the new system is (generally) both more realistic and more convenient.

Obsidian should definitely add MP, ala Baldur's Gate 1, 2, Icewind Dale 1, 2. After they fix the major existing bugs, of course. Choosing not to include MP was a below-the-belt move for Obsidian to pull, given that they primarily billed their game as a successor to those titles which all had it out of the box. Heck, the first time I ever heard of Baldur's Gate was when my brother told me, "Have you heard about the RPG that lets six players each create their own character and play through the whole single-player campaign coop?" My response was something like, "That's awesome!" The naysayers are dominated by people who never played BG1/2/IWD1/2 multiplayer and/or have no friends and so spend all their time on the internet whining about the idea of other people enjoying games with their friends. (Hey, maybe if you weren't so eager to ruin someone else's day just because it doesn't benefit you, you'd have more friends.) The "development resources" excuse doesn't really fly, as most of what PoE needs after the bugs are ironed out is not coding intensive, while adding MP would mostly require coding.

Guys, most of what's being described here makes perfect sense for the rogue class. Mechanically and thematically, a ranger is just a rogue with survival skill. A rogue is just an urban ranger. This is extra true given that in PoE pickpocketing isn't a thing, and lockpicking is class independent. Even the definition of the word "rogue" makes some sense for a ranger, "an elephant or other large wild animal driven away or living apart from the herd and having savage or destructive tendencies." What rogues and rangers have in common: sneaky, good at searching for stuff, good at stalking, can use bows (optional for rogues, but still within flavor), know how to survive the night outside, traps, tend to be loners, stay away from polite society. Animal Companion should be a talent tree for any class. Rangers should be a variety of rogue. If you need to, you can relabel the rogue to "maverick." Fixed. I'd probably make the more exotic animal companion options require a certain level of survival skill.

Umm... no... that would be why I suggested getting rid of the class completely.

As I understand things, the real benefit of early firearms was not their effectiveness in contrast with archers, but their relative ease of use. Being a good archer required years of rigorous practice. If that's true, it would make more sense to have an archer class than a musketeer class. To balance things, bows would have to have a higher DPS than guns (and crossbows) but guns could have a really high per-shot damage. Guns would be the weapon of choice for the non-specialist.

Not surprisingly, I thought the ranger was prett lack-luster. Although I don't think the ranger's in danger of winning any overpoweredness contests, I actually didn't think the ranger was too weak. The ranger is really just the pet-owner class. Other than the fact that D&D also had (and struggled with) animal companions, the class barely feels like a ranger at all. This wouldn't be a huge problem if it didn't mean that, in the end, there's almost nothing to do with the ranger in both character building and combat. In my opinion, the ranger would make more sense (and probably be a lot more fun) as a series of talents available to any character. (Think about it: then Sagani could be a rogue!) That's a pretty dire verdict on a class. I'm not joking though. At this point, if I had to fix the ranger I would just get rid of it completely and allow any character to buy into the ranger pet through a series of talents (starting with something weaker, of course, since a whole ranger pet would be a bit OPed for just one talent). The remaining abilities could be divided among other classes as made sense. I'm not being hyperbolically negative here either. I actually think this would be a nice improvement to the game--allowing characters to be distinguished by the fact that they have an animal companion rather than defined by the fact they have an animal companion. The fighter with a pet wolf would feel a lot different than one without, both mechanically and from a storytelling perspective. Same for every other class.

I am not sure what your point is here. Shouldn't evey class be able to win solo on Path of the Damned? I'm not bothered by the Paladin's power level. The Paladin just feels pretty bland and non-interactive in combat. Also, he makes a relatively poor tank, it seems, compared to the Fighter, which seems a little out of concept. For tanking I'd expect Paladins and Monks to be tier 1, Fighters and Barbarians to be tier 1 or 2.

My PC was a Goldpact Paladin. Overall, I found the Paladin decently interesting to build and play. I liked the bonus to defenses from certain reputations. I felt that was a much nicer way to make Paladin's the "roleplay" class ala D&D without hamfisting it (like AD&D does with most things) and still allowing a wide representation of roleplaying Paladins that weren't all Lawful Good. However, I found the Paladin to be pretty boring in combat due to the low number of abilities, with a low number of uses, that were fairly niche as well and no distinguishing combat mechanics (other than a couple auras that overlap with Chanter anyway). By the end of the game, in particular, my PC Paladin had a laundry list of low-use abilities (many of which were per-rest) that I rarely used, and were frequently irrelevant anyway. (Some of that was because I would wear ability-granting equipment just because there was nothing else to wear in that slot, but that's another issue.) Even though I accidentally picked Lay on Hands at the beginning of the game, by the end of the game I was running out of abilities that I wanted to pick. I've read somewhere that the Paladin was supposed to be like a D&D4 Warlord, but giving the Paladin single-target buffs doesn't really play like a Warlord at all--it plays like a Priest. Putting the Warlord into RTwP gameplay would probably be hard, but I think you could do a lot better than PoE. First step would be to make Coordinated Attacks an early, rather than a late, ability, so that the player can build around it. I'd remove the melee limitation of Flames of Devotion, because that bombos with Coordinated Attacks. I'd add an ability that let the Warlord swap places with an ally without triggering Engagement Attacks. Liberating Exhortation works okay for this paradigm, because it's a bit about controlling the battlefield by helping your allies. I'd let nearby allies use Flames of Devotion, Sworn Enemy, and any other attack ability that makes sense. Abilities that trigger on killing enemies are yucky because they are "win more" abilities and they encourage unrealistic and unfun gameplay where you stop attacking an enemy so that the relevant character will get the kill. Instead, I'd give the Warlord an ability that applies a limited duration debuff to defenses when the warlord attacks a full-health enemy. That way the Warlord is leading the charge. But honestly, I'd make the Warlord paradigm a set of talents that anyone can take because, why not let the Fighter or any class be the battlefield coordinator too? To fix Paladins, first of all, I'd give the Paladin all the auras one by one, because they're not significant enough that it feels worth giving up an ability to get another aura that's mutually exclusive with the aura you already have. Second, I'd make Lay on Hands and Reviving Exhortation into Priest spells (because that's what they really are), and then just let the Paladin pick a spell from a list determined by his Order but taken (thematically) from the spell lists of all other classes, and have that spell as a 1-per encounter ability. Let the Paladin do it again at 6th and 11th level, or something. This should allow the player to build the kind of Paladin he or she wants to play while ensuring that the Paladin has abilities that the player actually wants to use. In this concept, the Paladin becomes a knights that draws on supernatural powers to complement his traditional martial abilities instead of pursuing an alternative martial art like the Barbarian or Monk. I felt that the Paladin didn't get enough tanking support in comparison to the Fighter. Some possible ways to improve that might be: Since Paladin's are known for wearing armor, give the Paladin a free small reduction to their armor penalty. I'd give them a Challenge ability that reduces the target's accuracy against other allies. Maybe give the Paladin an aura that slows enemy movement while the Paladin is standing still. Make the Paladin's single-enemy abilities allow the Paladin to engage that enemy for free.

So, having thought about this a little more, this is what I think the expansion or sequel should do: Divide all areas of the game into different categories that determine the resting rules: Town: Full rest after every fight. Wilderness/Monster Den: Full rest after every fight. Here the goal would be to make every encounter require all your resources. Dungeon: Limited rests, but you can leave at any point, with all the experience and loot you've acquired. However, leaving respawns the dungeon. The goal would be to make a "how low can you go?" experience where going deeper gets you better rewards each time, or a "this time I want to explore the left branch" experience. Scripted rests could be of the form, "The floor breaks beneath you, leaving you trapped in an abandoned cellar. The party rests as you go about determining how to get out," or "This spot seems sufficiently out-of-the-way for you to rest for a while. <hours later> Uh oh, Xaurips have spotted you. Looks like you're not going to be able to use this spot any longer." In both cases the location is compromised for resting after you've used it. You wouldn't want to make these areas so big that the player becomes bored of playing through the same encounters over and over again, although it could become a chance for sneaking and other ways of avoiding encounters to shine. Assault: No resting or leaving until you've defeated the main boss/accomplished the objective or lost. Losing would load to before the assault, but maybe provide you with a consolation prize of a little money and/or experience (not to mention spoiler knowledge). On some assaults, a loss will give the player the option to give up. Giving up would alter the plot (like a quest decision). I think letting you switch out wounded characters for fresh ones could be fine, as long as there was some way to prevent the player from just using endless Adventurer's Hall characters. Beating an assault area would turn it into a Monster's Den/Town-like area depending on what made sense. Like with Dungeon areas, you wouldn't want these to be too large or the player could become frustrated by effectively losing hours of play. Journey: A variation of Assault where you set off for a new location for the first time. (For example, travel between Defiance Bay and Dyrford.) It would just be a series of pre-determined encounters: bandits, roadblocks, meetings with mysterious strangers, and PoE-style choose-your-own-adventure vignettes. Afterwards the areas you traveled through would become Wilderness areas that you could return to and explore more thoroughly. Combination: Not really an area type, but you could place an Assault area within a Dungeon area. The idea would be to allow the player to experience the tension of resource management and the urgency of assault where appropriate without forcing those mechanics on the whole game.

Most people at least try to convince themselves and other's that they're good, even if they aren't really. It sounds to me like NPC companions are managing to fool you, OP, at least.

Oh please. You have no argument so now you're trying this... Your insinuation is both false and irrelevant. I've beaten BG1, TotSC, and BG2 multiple times each, and played Throne of Bhaal, Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale 1 & 2. Autopausing when I pressed the pause button was just as annoying then as it is now. But as Emptiness has pointed out, it doesn't matter. The criticism is valid regardless of what I've played. I'm asking for an easy and reasonable fix for the UI. You're the one who keeps making it out to be a big deal, something unreasonable to ask. I myself have coded the same feature a number of times for various UIs, where appropriate, so I know what I'm talking about. You seem to imagine it's a mountain. This has nothing to do with paying attention, and that means it is a bad design. Instead of explaining this to you a third time, I ask you to go to this site, test your reaction time and post it back here: https://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/java/redgreen.html Thanks.

Nope. Not true. The purpose of User Interface is to allow the user to communicate to the program what he or she wants to do. When the same button unpredictably does the opposite of what it did a fraction of a second before, that is bad UI because it undermines the purpose of UI. None of this is my opinion, it's just objective fact based on what a user interface is. You're trying to make it out to be a matter of opinion to save face or whatever, but it's not. Do you think the fact that ability buttons sometimes don't work shouldn't be fixed because it just takes another click? Now, you're welcome to you opinion about whether they should do something about this UI issue, but "I don't see it as an issue... with a side order of I hate it when the goal seems to be making a game that plays itself while the player sits back and watches things unfold" is a horrible argument for leaving objectively poor UI in the game. Just pointing that out. The purpose of the pause key is to pause and unpause the game - if the game is paused clicking it will unpause it if the game is not paused clicking it will pause the game - it is not broken - it works exactly as designed - the issue here is simply PLAYER ERROR not determining whether the game is paused or unpaused before applying the key. It is the Players option to use the auto-pause features the game provides knowing that this will cause the game to pause on it's own in certain circumstances - this does in fact mean that the player should determine what stage the game is in before pressing the pause/unpause key indiscriminately. The good news is if they fail to do this and end up pausing or unpausing when what they wanted to do was the opposite of that - the solution is to simply click the pause/unpause button again and all will be right with the world. One assumes that if the player is unable to perform such actions in a timely manner due to lack of focus or dexterity that perhaps they should consider not having the game pause automatically and/or try playing in slow mode to allow themselves more time to make that key press. What I do not see as necessary is taking steps to redesign a portion of the UI system that is currently working exactly as designed and as a side note works exactly as it did in every one of the IE games that this game is the spiritual successor to. You're clearly either not listening or simply refusing to acknowledge the facts. As I already mentioned, the time between a humans decision to press the pause button and the actual pressing of the pause button takes many iterations of game-time--plenty of time for an auto-pause to occur. An average human reaction time is about a quarter of a second, that's 15 frames of a typical game. To call something like that user error is like calling a human's inability to see infrared user error--ridiculous--both are simply prevented by human biology. Your "click-again" argument has already been refuted in multiple ways. There's no point for you to keep mentioning it. And what we're asking for here is a tweak, not a "redesign."

Steam is downloading a 579.9 MB patch. I thought I already had the latest beta patch. Anyone know what this is? I don't see any announcements about it or anything.

Along these lines, I would like it if Big Head Mode had a slider. Right now the big heads are really useful for figuring out who is where, but they are so big that they can get in the way of seeing what's going on, so a happy medium would be nice.

Nope. Not true. The purpose of User Interface is to allow the user to communicate to the program what he or she wants to do. When the same button unpredictably does the opposite of what it did a fraction of a second before, that is bad UI because it undermines the purpose of UI. None of this is my opinion, it's just objective fact based on what a user interface is. You're trying to make it out to be a matter of opinion to save face or whatever, but it's not. Do you think the fact that ability buttons sometimes don't work shouldn't be fixed because it just takes another click? Now, you're welcome to you opinion about whether they should do something about this UI issue, but "I don't see it as an issue... with a side order of I hate it when the goal seems to be making a game that plays itself while the player sits back and watches things unfold" is a horrible argument for leaving objectively poor UI in the game. Just pointing that out.

The resistance is I don't see it as an issue and hence would just as soon devs spent time and resources on more relevant issues with a side order of I hate it when the goal seems to be making a game that plays itself while the player sits back and watches things unfold. You don't like a certain style of play therefore bad UI is acceptable? Got it. I don't consider the UI to be bad thus I would prefer if the devs didn't waste time fixing something I don't think is broken when they could spend that time doing things that I think are more important - that's my opinion and I choose to voice it because that's what discussion is about - people voicing their opinions about the subject presented. That the current pause behavior is bad UI is not a matter of opinion. It's a matter of fact. The fact that you don't like playing a certain way has zero bearing on this issue. You're welcome to share your opinion, but if you justify it with obtuseness, sarcasm, and personal bias rather than reason, people can and will call you on it.

It seems strange that the game would provide even more incentive than are already present in the basic game mechanics for you to have slow tanks wearing the heaviest armor possible.

The resistance is I don't see it as an issue and hence would just as soon devs spent time and resources on more relevant issues with a side order of I hate it when the goal seems to be making a game that plays itself while the player sits back and watches things unfold. You don't like a certain style of play therefore bad UI is acceptable? Got it.

I've had situations where two auto-pauses follow right on each other, so my attempt to repause it actually re-unpauses it. Oh no!!!!!! This would require another click (gasp) Which might mean another unpause... You seem to be failing to grasp that the problem is not the clicks but the fact that the clicks do the opposite of what's wanted. They waste critical seconds of combat when you're trying to do something. Now, maybe the way you play those seconds don't matter, but I try to make every second count, so I would like it to pause the game when I press the pause button.

+1