Aotrs Commander

Right. So they have, in fact made their downloading and installing LESS user friendly than games on CD twenty years ago. Okay then. Time to make file an offical complaint with their technical services, because that is not acceptable.

Okay, I give chaps and chappesses: how the merry heck do I update PoE/install WM2 on GoG? I've downloaded all the patches/updates, but it keeps saying "your version is not supported, download a new installer." Slipping into the game, I appear to be on 2.01 (last time I payed was when White March 1 was out). There's a 2.03 to 3.0 patch on GoG... But no 2.01 to 2.02/2.03 etc update. Is there some kind of hidden prior patch update thing on GoG or what...? I vaguely recall talk of such being mentioned, but I have no idea where such things are located and my cursory search of the obvious options came up lacking. Do I really have to re-install the entire base game because apparently there's no 2.01 => later patches available anymore? (Quite why GoG's patch installer requires everything to be sequentially installed I am somewhat baffled. Now, I can maybe see leaving the opportunity to remain at earlier patches or something (a goal that would be rendered utterly moot if I have to install PoE fresh as 3.0...), but why that also entails making the most recent patch not include the previous patches like... Well, pretty much every game I've had to patch in the last ten years. Especially if the upshot is that if you don't happen to download the patches the moment they come out, you end up having to reinstall the entire game... (I'm sure there's a terrible good reason, I'm just baffled as to what it might be...) (Yes, I am rather now regretting my choice to go GoG not Steam at this point, thanks for asking; in my defence, I'd never had a game with active updates on GoG before; had I known how much of a pain it would be...) I must be missing something blindingly obvious, surely?

No, at lower levels of difficulty it isn't so much; because by the nature of low-level, there's less "down" than "up." And if there's no "down," there are no trivial fights anyway. (Which is why most RPGs tend to have an inverse difficutly curve over the low-to-mid level range at least, since at bottom levels you have so little resources to spend and you'll probably find you have to rest more anyway. Actually, that said, I think PoE's endurance/health system actually went a long way to migitate the "we have to rest after nearly every fight since we're out of resources (e.g. hit points)" you often got at bottom levels in the IE games.) But by the time you hit mid-level (where I think PoE got the balance right with the per-encounters filtering in) there's enough "down" you start to get those trivial fights (if you don't have some completely fluid level-scaling system, which has a different set of problems!)

My personal illustraive case, to illustrate what pi2repsion was saying (taking into consideration I am the sort of player who plays too much to be called a "dirty casual" but is only at an average skill level and for whom there are but a handful of games ever on which above the medium difficulty level are ever touched): In WM1, in the side quest tower area, I found I was having to rest (on normal) after two or three encounters, because my lvl 12 party was running out of top-level spells and health. In Durgun's battery, where I was now max level (and thus fairly over-levelled for the monsters, even with them maxed out), I fought almost the entire thing using my per-encounter powers. What would have changed if there were no per-encounter spells? In the first case: nothing. Health and top-level spells were the most important factor; prevalence of level 1-2 (or even 3) spells was not an issue even under consideration; and even if it was, the amount used would have been well-under per-day before I could no longer proceed to the next fight because I was out of health. In the second case: all that would have happened is I would have rested more, since I would have been using more per-day spells (probably higher level ones) and/or using very few spells at all and fighting entirely with no-per rest resources used. In the first instance, I would have thus rested more when I ran out of per-day spells; in the second instance I would have rested more, since the combats would perhaps have taken longer (since I was using just using weapons attacks) and I would have taken more damage. The only other option is, in the second instance where I used just weapons to clear those encounters but taken no more damage, so I would have rested exactly as often, but instead of using spells per encounter, I would have been doing the rather less interesing "select party, click attack on target" interspersed with more "spam amplified wave." I have been playing IWD2 recently (as in, since I finished WM1) and I have found that this third option is essentially what I've been doing, despite having a party of four primary casters and bard plus a light tank. Because I save my decent spells for the boss battles, I end up fighting most of the encounters there thus far by simple shooting everything to death with bows; it's not even worth using my 1st level spells for. Which is not tactically demanding. Had I got per-encounter spells there, I would have used them, which would not have decreased the difficulty of these already trivialised fights, but would have made it perhaps a little more entertaining to play. So. A trivial fight is a trivial fight is a trivial fight. If the party is sufficiently overlevelled (very to do in PoE) that you can win it with "click normal attack, repeat ad nausem" then it doesn't MATTER if the wizard and cleric and druid can spam spells. (Hell, the Ciphers ALREADY DO; by the time you've started out with two amplified waves, followed by usually only one attck from their blunderbusses, you're in a position to spam amplified wave AGAIN and that's better than a lot of wizard spells!) If anything, then, taking away the caster's per-encounter spells just makes thew cypher a more attractive option.) It doesn't make the fight more meaningful. It dfoes make it slightly shorter, but since if you can win by just "click attack" additinal length is not MEANINGFUL. It's just busy-work. Per-encounter spells at least make it slightly more fun, because all the shiny VFX (and that's the long and short of it, really). Because as soon as you stick that "per-rest" flag on an ability, you may as well replace it with a "do not use until boss fight" because basically that's what it translates to for most people. (Further example. I am not a particular fan of D&D 4E, but when someone else runs it, I play. Notably, we ended up having to come to a gentleman's agreement with the DM to fight at least four combats before resting, because we would either use virtually no per-days (except the odd area-effect if it came up), or we'd nova and use all of them and then immeditely rest, because we'd been taught by the modules you don't around without your big guns in reserve.) You can't package out a limited resource and expect people will actually trickle it out, because most people don't think that way; there is the natural inclination to save the powerful (and by making it limited, you'e automatically drawing a flashing neon sign underneath it saying "THIS IS POWERFUL") abilities for "in case I need them", which is typically a boss fight, not a generic chaff encounter. By removing the per-encounter flag, all you do is change the goal-posts as to what people will classify as "powerful." The only solution to that, aside from mass mind-control, is to not have any trivial fights. But then if you treat every fight like a boss fight, it means you're going to HAVE to have people resting more (see: side quest tower area, where I had to rest more than in any other area in the entire game). Despite a lot of people complaining PoE is too easy, a large but I suspect the fairly quiet majority (as there always is) will be comfortable with the difficulty as-is. And while a skilled player might be able to use less resources in a boss fight (by using exactly the right resources) most folk aren't. And further - which is what the badly designed early model for 4E taught my group - you don't then go around at less than full strength because you might run into a fight you can't win. So you're right back to rest-spam. And then it doesn't matter whether you limit the camping supplies or not, since you'll find people will tend to put up with tedium more than difficutly (so even if you removed camping supplies altogether, people would just trot back to the inn after every couple of fights, adding nothing but busy work to the game.) (And if you prevent THAT, by making the characters unable to leave the area or rest until some condition is fulfilled), you'll find people turn the difficulty down, furiously complain the game is too hard, have to use a strategy walkthrough for the whole game and/or not buy the game in the first place when they hear about "how hard" it is.) Basically, you can't MAKE people play in such a way as to force them to use a steady trickle of limited resources. Hell, you can't even do that on the TABLETOP with a living, breathing (or not...) DM! Now, I can see maybe an arguement for having an option for Hard or PotD for disabling per-encounter spells if you want to make it harder; but in general, if you are fighting battles that you are using nothing but per-encounter abilities on, it's not a fight that many - perhaps even most - going to be using per-day abilities on anyway. Regardless of what level of power those abilities actually really ARE.

Well, I've come to pretty much the end of the expansion now (just one or two boss fights to maybe tackle) and I barely used either of the level 7s. (Actually, I barely touched anything above level 3 for anyone). Amplified Wave (especially doubled), combined with Aloth's now-spammable fireball did the majority of the work (especially having added the sneak attack multiclass feat to both ciphers...)

What's the general opinion of the level 7 cipher powers? My own immediate impression that they were a bit pants (qualifier: I'm playing on normal). I picked the speed-stealing one (though both my character and GM are using blunderbusses and... I don't think I've really noticed much effect when I used it) - I can maybe see a use for the stasis one in some of the boss fights, but I'm not sure either are better than Amplified Wave to burn focus on. What are other people's thoughts and/or how should said powers be used (i.e. am I just being dense and they're really good when used right or what)?

I had the same problem. I moved into a building, and some fo the arae was clear and but there were loads of pink dots. Going back outside was a wolrd of pink again. Notably, I had started by installing the PoE 2.1.10 patch on GoG, which took a very long time to load up (I had to try about three times because it locked up; I thought it was just being awkward, since I was running some other maintenance taska at the time). I went back and deleted that off the harddrive completely and then ran the White March 2.1.10 patch from GoG. I restarted the game after applying the White March patch and everything now looks normal. Maybe there's something up with GoG's basic non-expansion PoE patch.

Really? Interesting... I saw somebody mention something about that, but was a bit puzzled; I started from my pre-pit endgame save (only got the one playthrough!) at level 12 and wasn't given that option, which says it's clever enough to detect my party was max level and automatically scale accordingly. This only applies to the white march. You're probably talking about the fort in the dyrwood, which is meant for lvl 12+ regardless of scaling. Aaaaaah! Right, yes, got it!

Really? Interesting... I saw somebody mention something about that, but was a bit puzzled; I started from my pre-pit endgame save (only got the one playthrough!) at level 12 and wasn't given that option, which says it's clever enough to detect my party was max level and automatically scale accordingly.

If it's stuff in the first new area you're having trouble with, it might just be some of it is the type of enemy, as people have said. I am in a similar position level and difficulty wise (12 - i just grabbed the party from the first pre-pit save), with a cipher, Sagani, Eder, Aloth, Durance and GM), also having got through most fights without much trouble and found the combat notably a good deal harder. (I actually think Itumaak might be earning his pay here by providing an extra body to disperse the enemy a bit). I noticed at least once an enemy barbarian-class apparently leap over the tanks to the back ranks. (I don't know what difference it might make, but I only have the one playthrough, and thus my NPCs were picked up before the companion stat revisions.) I start out typically with both ciphers spamming Amplified Wave, which might have bought me a bit of time in at least migitating the first charge, as while I have been pressed MUCH harder than usual (I actually had to rest mid-map), I have been making progress. At least until I ran into the enemies with very high Int Clear Out which just laugh at the idea of tanks as they just knock them prone for a lot of seconds BEHIND your casters...!

Sorry, when I meant max level, I meant max level of the original games (I.e. level 12). All I did was go back to my last save before jumping down the pit. Well, in theory (I haven't tried it) you could rest three times in succession at Brighthollow which would leave you with three bonuses until you next rest, when you'd lose the first one or stack with the inn bonuses, assuming the bonus don't overwrite. (I'm assuming the rest bonuses at normal inns don't last any longer than usual, as that would potentially allow you to stack the top three inns...!) From the looks of the forums, part of the increased difficulty appears to be the improved creature AI meaning things will sometimes move past your tanks - though I've not found that quite so much the problem myself (I guess my usual fairly high focus on damage and offense keeps Eder still a big enough threat), but more some nasty stuff like what presumably must be very high Int-backed Clear Out attacks, which throw your characters back a good half a screen width and knock them prone for nearly ten seconds. (At one point four out of seven characters (six+pet) got hit, and it was only becase Eder actually got away with it and hit with his own knock-down hard immediately thereafter that I managed to salvage the situation!) I'm also not used to hitting a mook something with two cipher maximised blunderbusses with envenomed strike (and appropriate slaying enchantment) and it NOT dying...!

And if the first area of the expansion is anything to go by, we might need that extra buff...! All I will say here is that on Normal with a party at max level (two of which are ciphers), there were not many fights I had to re-do and i found I could do most areas one a single rest (maybe a little more). First area of the expansion, and I've had to rest once already (nearly out of health) and I will have to do so again once I've completed the area! My initial impresson - a bit like BG's Durlag's Tower - there's a bit of a difficulty spike! (Which hopefully should please the ladies and gentleman who complained it was too easy for them!)

I just went to rest at Brighthollow, prior to starting the expansion... Unholy fracking crap that's an improvement! Not only are most of the bonus now +3 (stealth was +2), but they also last for 3 rests! NOW that feels more like it was worth the extra gold and time! (Also, my hirelings appearf to have been paid as well...!) (Cue the inevitable few people complaining that's now too good, just to prove you can't ever please some people...!)

How much XP are you supposed to get for killing him the second time? When I did it, I got like 32000 or something daft, which seemed a bit excessive...

Right. Sorry about the delay! Attached the files DxDiag and output_log.txt. I stopped playing just after I got this bug and shut the game down (as it happened, it was time to go out anyway!) so the output file will be for immediately after the last save. Dropbox link to a zip with the save files (the quick save immediately before, and the regular save I made aftewards.) https://www.dropbox.com/s/e4il1lw3kmo9729/BerathsChampionXPReport.zip?dl=0 I don't have any screenshots, unfortunately (I'd have to re-fight the battle), but the XP differences should be illustrative! DxDiag.txt output_log.txt

On completing the Champions of Berath Sidequest, I recieved 32994 XP, enough to shoot me from about half-way through level 11 to the maximum cap. This seems inordinately large, and possibly a typo. I am playing on Win 7, version 1.05. I can't post the save files currently (wrong HDD), but I will attempt to do so tomorrow when I have time to do so (I wasn't sure at the time whether or not this was a bug, but a concensus seems to be that is is).

I just did the Champion of Berath quest. Is it supposed to give you 32994 XP? (Which slapped me right up to the level cap.) I thought that 1.05 was reducing the amount of quest XP - you have though that one was a prime contender. (I havent' even started on the second round of bounties of gone past level 11 of the Endless Paths yet. Because that seems like an AWFUL lot, and I'm wondering if it's a typo. But having no idea how much you got for it normally, I don't know if it's been changed in 1.05 or if it's a bug I should report. I know people had been saying you hit the level cap early, but at level 11 only, what, maybe halfway through Act 3, I figured it wasn't quite that bad...!

Right, well that explains the second question anyway! Thanks.

Now that (supposedly!) all the +elemental damage talents are now working (e.g. Scion of Flame), do we know if they affect damage inflicted by weapon lash effects? (I'd assume probably no, but it would be nice to know for sure.) Secondary question: how - or probably more accurately - when is the +25% weapon lash damage calculated? I was examining my cipher's blunderbuss damage, and it looked like it was only getting about 20%, so from reading elsewhere, I assume it doesn't multiply your total damage...?

Damn, that's a useful graphic. Thanks for linking that, I'mma save that one for later use!

As a difficulty setting - MAYBE. But as a general rule - heck no. Save often, in as many slots as possible. In fact, MORE autosave slots would perhaps not be a bad idea. I also really don't like the idea of being forced - as a matter of course, the odd time, signposted as you say would be fine - of being unable to leave a dungeon for some fairly arbitartay reason. You could all too easily go into a dungeon, just about manage to get past the first couple of fights, and then find one you can't win at that time and bascially have to go back to an much earlier save. Trying to force resting restrictions is no better than having them too lax - and generally, it's better to let people decide how they want to play the game than to say "you HAVE to play this way.". (The problem is the when people choose to play a certain way and then complain about how the game is not specifically set up for them to play that way excluisvely - a sadly prevalent thing even outside gaming.) The other problem is, of course, getting people to understand that not everyone should feel obligated to play on the hardest setting or get their gamer-card revoked or something (coming from a guy who rarely EVER plays above the normal or easy mode on ANY game, just so as we're clear I'm not suggesting "some people are newbs that can't play as well as I can" or something) and that playing on a difficulty level that is not the top one does not constitute some sort of terrible sin..! (I wonder if having a more granular difficulty system might ease that somewhat, if very carefully titled to avoid easy/normal/hard/above hard or something. Or perhaps just more individual toggles. Of course, a few people will no doubt switch them all anyway on principle, regardless of their skill, and then try to play using the most basic gameplay options and then complain the game is too hard, but you just can't help those people...!)

I honestly do wonder whether there is a factor wherein people want to play on the higher/highest levels of difficulty as a matter of pride, but are not perhaps really willing to adjust their stratagies to actually play at that level. I think there is almost certainly an element of that, generally, as a fundemental flaw in having difficulty modes - and unavoidable one, of course, since the only alternative is only to have a single difficulty level. But I do wonder if a few people do try to play above the difficultly level they would really be comfortable playing, in practise, just because they don't like what that that difficulty level is called or it isn't the highest one. I'm sure that there will be people that do this, but what I do not know is how widespread it is. I should note that I say this as someone who probably plays far too much to be considered a Filthy Casual (sic), but who in general sticks to the bottom-end of difficulty levels and rarely rises above normal (as with PoE) - I don't play games for the "challenge" as i know many people do, but merely to be Make Something or be told a story of some form complete with some pretty explosions, when you get down to it. (My games are basically exclusively single-player and RPGs/RTS (campaign mode only, generally), 4X and city-builders.) I have no pride in my gaming skills; they are what they are!

Again, what would restricted resting have achieved but people complaining they had to tediously walk out of the dungeon to camp (like they do if they want to go to an inn now anyway)? Resting in dangerous areas - just like saying "well, if the PCs are resting too much, ambush them in their sleep" is actually not a very good solution, since rather than discouraging people from resting for spell-spam, it punishes you for trying to rest when you really DO need to. Meaning you - ocne again - have to leave the dungeon to go and rest somewhere safe and still adding the same amount of busy work. The alternative is to allow people to rest anywhere as often as they like, which then encourages rest-spam. The HP/stamina thing is actually a good idea. Healing after combat is always a bit of tedious chore (and requires the cleric to use all the spell slots). This way, you basically remove that bit of book-keeping, but you achieve the same sort of effect of degrading the party's hit point reserves over time (making hit points a limited resource that you need to rest to regain IN EFFECT giving you the same results as hit points+spell healing, where you need to rest once you run out of the latter). Essentially, one can look at it as if the endurance regeneration after combat is the party's cleric casting his healing spells (or radiance) several times out of combat, but without you having to micromanage it. Again the alternative is either to do it IE style (and thus you once again REQUIRE a cleric/druid and then they will have to spend all their spells healing OR again, back to rest spam) or you give a party unlimited hit points (and/or spells) and removing resting as mechanic altogther.

The thing is, neither of those solutions ultimately change anything. All THAT does is force people to backtrack through three or four screens to find a safe place to rest (EXACTLY like people complaining they have to do when they don't have enough camping supplies) or save/load until they get a safe full rest. (Last time I played BG2 I used the fan ease of use mod, one option of which was to allow you rest anywhere just to avoid having to do this backtracking. Though in PoE, I'm playing on normal and it's a rare day when I even have to touch my camping supplies, and usually only have to rest when the party starts getting fatigued.) Fiddling around with the rest system really only changes the goalposts - people who want to rest after every combat so they can spam the wizard spells (because it's not really the classes who don't have pre rest abilities as their priamry feature people complain about resting over, let's face it) WILL do so whatever you do, and the harder you make it, the more they will complain as they do that it's tedious busywork. (Heck, people are complaining about resting existing at ALL because they can't spam their spells every fight.) If you take out camping supplies, you are back to "rest as much as you like anywhere" or "essentially enforce people to backtrack several screens or save/load to rest." And, of course, if you let everyone rest everywhere and spam their spells all the time... People will then complain the game is too easy (if you balance it for the people that don't) or too hard (if you balance it with the expectation every fight uses the resources of a full wizard party or something). (Maybe in a world with unlimited resources that is how one should go about setting the difficulty level, in practise: you don't have levels, the game just adds monsters or whatnot depending on yor party composition...) The short answer is, you can't win, whatever you do. If you give people unlimited resources, they will complain they have unlimited resources (because it is too easy or not realistic) and if you give them a limitation on their resources, they will complain you gave them a limitation on their resources (because it is too hard or they have to ration their resources).

I would just like to point out that many people (including me) requested this feature since this was an opinion in BG1, BG2, and Icewind Dale. And the implementation here is better than it's ever been. I think it's pretty much a critical game feature actually. The bonus you get for having to make do with the default companion's... Inevitably poor mechanical builds (especially if like me you're on your first playthrough and started before they got tweaked) is benefits of the companion's dialogue and quests (more than good enough, in my opinion). Conversely, the price you pay for custom companions is... not getting that. Now, there are not very many companions (actually one the smaller amountsd I can think of, bar perhaps PS:T), so the chances of someone coming across one or two they really don't like are higher. At least with this, you can ditch one you really hate (if for instance, I decided I was absolutely fed-up with Durance, I could go make a new priest). And you really don't want to end up in the BG 2 situation where if you played Evil, there was only about three or four characters to choose from, since good and evil characters wouldn't stick around in the opposite alignments. (It's also worth noting that I played through BG 1 about three times... And never once used anything other than a party of six of my own characters.)