Quadrone

What. Is this some next level satire?

Yeah it would be nice to have the option to turn those off. I have modded the Backer NPC icons out, so if they don't do it that's what I'll be doing for release and having a bunch of npcs with no dialogue standing around. Hopefully that won't be neccessary, Backer info should be a toggle that is turned off by default.

Gawd, I can't take it anymore. Having to listen to that Jesse guys mindnumbing, unfunny comments... mercy.

Have to agree with Shevek here, Wizards aren't often discribed as Glass Cannons for nothing. Slow, frail but with great effect. So I too would prefer it if spell casting really makes a difference, even just a single one. Right now spells feel overbalanced, as not even the highest level spell available really stands out even when used on low tier enemies. 2-3 spells used in concert should really give that "I love it when a plan comes together" feeling.

Don't certain European countries (mostly Germany) restrict showing bloody bits in games? I'd hate to see gibs turned into technicolor confetti in some regions. If think that's the case, yes. Maybe they'll get a censored version. Just don't ruin the gore for the rest of us: Germany Quiet! You lowly member states will get what ze EU leader state deigns is appropriate for you! More seriously, the crazy censoring of blood is mostly a thing of the past. FPS games usually have to accept an USK 18 and thats it. Exceptions where some problems might arise is the killing of unarmed civilians and nazi symbolism.

Well there's also character level, whether you hire an adventurer and looted gear to consider. Shevek says he kills Medreth's group, gets the reward from Nyfre, levels up and buys a 6th party member. Many of us do it with the stock party, stock gear and no extra adventurer - and then on Hard you can't single pull beetles like that. Some of us try to play 'optimally' as well. Shevek could lose less health if he used per-encounter abilities every encounter, but he prefers to just auto-attack because it requires less effort. So there's naturally a difference in pausing there too. Yes, I saw that. I just didn't want to write all the steps out. But it's all the more aggrevating that i.e. the "correct" way to play is to kick out your mage since his spells are suboptimal and also kite your enemies. Of course optimizing your party like that should make things easier, but it shouldn't completely turn the difficulty on its head. (Slight hyperbole, yes.)

Wow, this thread exploded since yesterday. It seems the discussion has now moved on quite a bit, so I'll just toss this out quick: Reading up on things, between the stuff Razsius said is broken (and which I used) and how Shevek sets up his party and approaches combat I can now see why impressions differ so much. Makes me actually rethink that combat is not too hard in itself. It just swings wildly depending on if you know how to avoid trap builds and max the correct skills/talents. From pause-a-thon to A-move your party. Hopefully this is just another part of beta testing. Huh, this also explains why sometimes it was me who murdered Medreth/Beetles and with a different Character/Party build it was me who got murdered.

Yes, thats right! I don't want any challenge, that's what I said. Please don't blank out after the first word and take note of the quite fine distinction I've made for what type of encounters this should apply to. I played through BG, BG2 and PS:T just fine more then a decade ago, I didn't back the Kickstarter just to be hipster. Again, I'm not talking about the odd special encounter, nor any encounter related to a side- or main quest, just local beasts siiting on the road between A and B (making these also hard to avoid). Likewise my party is not so low level that everything is dangerous, but is instead of appropriate level and gear for this area. Now, if these both are true I feel that having to do a "Pause-a-thon" to prevent my party from getting torn appart is tiring. These are just filler battles, rudimentary positioning and spell use should be enough here. To me these should work as a drain on your party resources: Use powerful but limited abilities/spells to kill your enemies off quickly or safe the abilities/spells and take more damage (not risk death) . Both of which will then force you to rest or compensate with other items/spells. If I wanted every encounter along the way to be a test I'd play on hard or higher,...but I don't.

I stand by my point. A mob of random critters, not part of a dungeon (or other special area), not part of a quest, just fauna on my path inbetween two points. If I'm playing on the lower difficulty settings and as long as I didn't fall asleep on the keyboard my party should not die there. Never ever. That's not enjoyable challenge to me, thats grind wearing me down.

Nothing much more to add here. Guess I'll have to admit a certain casualness regarding combat. If I have to really think about all the resources at my disposal to get through a single thrash mob without losing a party member thats just draining on my enjoyment and patience. If playing on easy and normal it should be the other way around, with a mid level party against random nature critters it should be, more or less, optional to activate spells and abilities. By this I mean that it should be near impossible to die but using spells, items and abilities still reduces the damage your party takes and speeds up the encounter.

If they actually were "vendors, townspeople, or random mooks" that would be preferable. Instead they are those human signposts, only there so you can click on the eye button and read a bit of fanfiction. Or rather, that is the only kind I met. Wouldn't be so bad if they had any other function but so far you can't even talk to them.

Don't know the actual source, copied it from the codex. What Josh said is almost mostly what I wanted to post here. While the new Talent/Skill System might not be ideal it is no worse then the old one (imo). In the old System you just mashed the + button for your class favoured skills, why would you do anything else? The only reason not to do so, seems to me, is if you want to roleplay a special snowflake or for some meta party optimization (i.e. all Wizard party but one is an athletic Wizard, one is a stealthy Wizard, etc...). If all talents give skills that make sense and aren't mixed wildly I can see this working.

Stop being an enabler Sensuki! If you make it sound like you expect it to take some extra time they'll just take the day off today!

I hope you're able to locate and iron out that bug quickly, cause I'm really excited to see the progress the game has made this past month. Anything I could do to help your programmers with their work? Praying to a god of their choice? Wishing on a star? Screaming at them in german?

Eh, I might be misremembering things here, but didn't the last patch more or less surface without announcement? Oh wait no, didn't one of the devs appear last time to say it was going to be "today or tomorrow" after some complaining in another thread?

So,... it's gonna be this week, right? How about today?

We are hoping that we can start releasing patches weekly at some point. As for the next patch, I would like to release it this week, but it might have to come out next week. I would like to try and get Linux fixed on Steam before pushing out a new patch. Woah there BAdler dude, don't you wanna be one of the cool kidz? Release the patch this week, who cares about those Linux dorks anyway?

So, does that narrow down PoEs release date? Or are guides released ahead/later?

Well it has been quite a bit more quiet ever since the delay announcement. But on the other hand Obsidian has the bad habit of often announcing things less then 24 hours before they hit.

Eh, I think PoE could use a bit of counter magic. At least a Dispel Spell or something would be nice. The Wizard can use any Non-AoE-Damage Spell he can get IMO. Can someone confirm/deconfirm my gut feeling while we're at it? Is the damage output of most wizard spells a bit mediocre, or ist that just me? Throwing Fireballs just feels kinda lackluster to me.

No

Reading some of the replies here, in regard to the length of the delay, makes me somewhat confused. What kind of changes are you actually hoping for? What would make a delay above about 4 months from now necessary? Aside from possible overlap with The Witcher 3's release. But otherwise I don't feel the game is in need of any major overhauls.

Even though I hoped for a December release, I can of course get behind wanting to polish the game to a nice and presentable state. As long as Obsidian can afford it every extra week spend in development makes for a more polished first experience. ... So, how long a delay are we talking about here? Second week of January or third week?

I know I'm not adding anything usefull to the topic but i just have to say that the past pages contain the probably most bizzare debate I remember ever reading on a forum. Glorious!

So he does. Doesn't make anything he says less retarded though. The notion alone that Obsidian has limitless time for development makes me grimace.