Jojobobo

He/she didn't elaborate overly much what they meant to begin with, but no they don't seem to be trolling at all.

I think most of these ideas are somewhat (and this is entirely my wild conjecture) born from work on the Fallout franchise (pre-Obsidian for some members, and during Obsidian for many). Fallout is in its very essence a series about the better days gone by and the bittersweet feeling of remembering them and trying to emulate them, and to add to that I think J E Sawyer was very keen on The Lonesome Road storyline they introduced - the idea of ghosts coming back from the past to haunt a largely faceless player character, and the interactions at that interface (in FO:NV, people had up till then been playing characters in any which way they wanted and rightly so for a true open-ended RPG, then they were confronted with a past and a history which was an interesting idea). "Who are you, who does not know his history," and all that - I see Pillars as an expansion of some of those ideas and themes, but rather than full blown apocalypse it takes the slightly less tragic yet more volatile situation of a region on the brink of civil war. Being a kind of weird postmodern critique on people's attachment to the past does really not ring true for the franchise, in my opinion. It's a bit of a stretch, and as I said vaguely insulting to the players. I really do think the subconscious element did just come from Fallout work, and not for some sort of weird snarky criticism of old school RPG players' attitudes they didn't realise they were working in.

As others have mentioned NegativeEdge, I think you're seeing metaphors and subtext when really the devs thought the story was interesting to tell in the manner they did - particularly because they could explore a darker tone as the audience was more mature. If the whole game is meant to be a metaphor for real life letting go of the past - particularly with reference to old games - then that's more of a critique made at the audience's expense which I don't think any developer would ever want to do. I do think the decline of this kind of genre was in part due to publisher machinations, from most publishers' view-points it makes sense to push technology to its limit in order to make a more pretty game - these kind of IE games for years haven't needed to be on the cutting edge of technology and so I think they gradually became seen as more risky by publishers. That isn't to say there isn't a market for these kind of games, just that it was easy to overlook by publishers. PoE was a commercial success after its funding, which I think clearly demonstrates the viability of these games. I guess you may think that talk of IP is a bit clinical, but to me I want developers I like to make the most money possible. Using their in house valuable assets to do that obviously makes sense, particularly when they can do that in way that is in line with the ideals of their brand and what their customers want from them. Game studios have a bottom line, like any of business.

I can't really tell if NegativeEdge is trolling, but I'll bite. I never got the sense the fanbase was rebuked at all by Pillars - which I presume you mean it missed the mark of our collective expectations. Though the game isn't flawless, games with complex mechanistic systems are always extremely tricky to balance - but I still liked that Obsidian had the balls to try. Besides, I never played most of the IE style games and I backed it - only really playing Icewind Dale 2 in that category. I did however play other classic RPGs, like FO and Arcanum - so all I was really looking for was a decent amount of detailed quests (not just repeatable dross, Bethesda) and a higher standard of writing than most modern RPGs. For me Obsidian certainly delivered on that. I think there was a load of other people in my situation, so the backers were far more than just the core IE games players who couldn't let go. If anything, I'd say work on Tyranny and Pillars' success proves that there is a gap in the market for these games - if Obsidian has the resources to fill it then they definitely should. There is a difference now though, in that Pillars has already been released and so it's easy enough to assume that Obsidian would want the sequel to closely resemble that. While I'm sure some backers will still come in with outrageous demands, now that the framework of how these games play is in place it's much easier to stay on target - rather than the situation before where anything seemed to be possible and so it was difficult to get cohesive opinions and ideas from the fanbase. Further Obsidian freely admitted they overdid it on stretch goals, because they didn't expect the project in a million years to get the kind of backer response it did and so they had to pull a lot of them out of thin air. With a second pass at the crowd-funding process, I'd say they will have thoroughly strategised all their stretch goals even up to amounts of funding they would have thought were inconceivable previously - which is great because it means they can focus on fewer details and have the quality remain higher. Overall it's good to hear the game is in some state of production, though it seemed a little obvious (and I think that's what Feargus was getting at hear) that a games company isn't going to sit idly buy and let one of their profitable IPs go to waste - so some development was more of less a given.

The next patch is supposed to tweak Rogues, so maybe we'll see some revised Backstab mechanics. I've always thought it's pretty bogus that it doesn't stack with the Rogue's bread and butter - the per encounter abilities. In terms of it applying to the first two attacks, maybe it's just going off the initial sneak attack duration (the first two seconds of combat, I think) as opposed to actual attacks from stealth. I guess it's difficult to say, obviously it depends on your rate of attack whether this would be true. I've always thought it was a waste of a talent anyway, even if they did get it sorted. Rogue's already do consistently high damage, situational slightly higher burst damage feels like a but of a waste of time.

I realise you can hire companions to do this, however to me this is still cheating on going legitimately solo. I also get that this is arbitrary distinction made by me, but I feel it's a distinction many other people would make too - given that the game doesn't class this as soloing, and many people who prefer hardcore difficulty will (A) want their playthrough to be as hard as possible in a legitimate sense and (B) not want to cheat. I'm perfectly fine soloing as is (and I do, happily), but as I said the devs keeping these items restricted to what the game defines as party play (even if you are just hiring an odd job man at a tavern and not making use of him elsewhere) is also very arbitrary. I think that is my real issue with it, as I don't think the difficulty argument as I've mentioned really applies here - because a lot of these items are big on flavour and/or have niche uses in the first place. I do agree however, it's not something the devs should waste time on. This is me assuming this would be an easy change to make, obviously if there's some sort of weird coding they would need to dig deep into to rectify this then they shouldn't waste their time.

Good to see poll ended more on the positive side of things, hopefully it's something the devs will consider before they stop patching.

There's a defence stacking bug resulting from use of the quick save/quick load feature. It should be fixed in the next patch, which they've said will be out at the end of the month. I guess do something else until then and come back to him if you want to carry on playing, or just wait.

For XP: Start dipping into the Endless Paths until you find it too tough, you should level up pretty quick and plus you get money and decent loot to make your party stronger. You can go to Dyrford already and do some quests there - some hard, some not so hard, again an easy way to grab more XP (maps leading to the village can be difficult, but if you stick to the path you're fine - you can always come back for these tricky encounters). Clear out all areas you can for bestiary experience, remembering to kill rare enemy types such as deer (I think each one gives 100 XP, as least it did for me on solo, which is rather a lot). You can always get to Raedric, talk to him and just kill him later - that way you get experience from the quest updating. I guess you might not want to in terms of roleplaying. Bounties, as others have mentioned, are good for XP. Make sure there aren't any other quests or tasks you've missed. I'd say Hard Feelings, The Forgotten, The Final Act, The Theorems of Pandgram and Something Secret can all be a little easy to overlook, either due to quest-givers being out of the way or quests only becoming available after other quests are completed. In terms of combat: Make sure you have and judiciously use the Obsidian Lamp and Iridescent Scarab figurines, the shock attack of the Adra Beetle is particularly nasty if you have people in choke points and the Shades blind people giving significant drops to enemy Reflex and Deflection. By resting often you can make good use of each of these, and they should allow you to take on the Forge Knights and the Sanitarium without too much hassle so long as you use choke points (further, you don't have to do all of Crucible Keep in one, you can go away and rest to break up the fighting). Remember to split and pull large groups, which is particularly easy if you have Shadowing Beyond on your Rogue (i.e. when you use it, enemies at the front which catch up to your position and then turn back, after this enemies at the back will catch up to your position and you are free to break out of invisibility now no longer having to deal with the whole group). This tactic works fine also just by running away, but it can be tricky to get to work - you can leave the other group members out of sight while one does this leg work, then ambush. If you have the money, upgrade items - particularly weapons and shields. Picking an accuracy/damage bonus against an enemy type you're struggling with (i.e. vessel for the Forge Knights and Flesh Constructs) isn't a bad idea either seeing as they're not very expensive. Make use of survival resting bonuses, using whatever is most applicable to your current situation. Remember to do the standard stuff, such as flanking and protecting your casters and support, every fight. Take account of enemy weaknesses (i.e. where they lack DR) when fighting them. This is all based on my solo PotD efforts, I agree there definitely is a bit of a bottleneck mid Act 2 that can be tricky to overcome, but keep at it and I'm sure you'll do fine.

It looks like a Big Daddy, which is always a good thing.

For DPS to me that looks great, depending on how glass cannon you want to go you could pick up a + concentration item like Swadling Sheet and dump RES even further but tbh I think you're current setup will work well enough as is. On my own tank build I've taken from the start MIG 19, CON 17, DEX 4, PER 14, INT 16 and RES 8 as a point of reference, looking for more slow and steady damage output with Retaliation and Deep Wounds over high DPS (with RES being boosted with items and the Caed Nua bonus later). PER 14 was so I could get PER 15 with Song of the Heavens (I don't have any room for a PER item unfortunately) and INT 16 for INT 20 with Gwyn's Band of Union and 50% durations - but all these are fairly arbitrary and for me was mostly about hitting nice round numbers. The MIG is for higher Deep Wounds, which you likely won't need or be taking (a little pointless if you're not in combat for long) - but overall there's obvious overlaps between the two setups which should be common to most Rogues.

1) Sap is a great ability, even though the duration is shorter you get two per encounter and the debuff Stun offers is pretty damn serious. Plus you can chain it to the other debuffs to get crit duration and more Deathblows (Withering Strike debuffs Will which the effect of Sap targets, Sap debuffs reflex which the effect of Blinding Strike targets - you get the picture). Smoke Cloud is pretty sucky as from what I remember it doesn't do damage and the duration is short (and the debuff of Distracted is pretty crap anyway), for Shadow Step and Feign Death honestly I don't really see much of a point - you can easily get Shadowing Beyond/Escape/whatever for these "get of of dodge" effects, two more seem unnecessary. Feign Death does give you an extra Invisibility and it is per encounter (I think) so if you're big on Backstab you can get some use there, but otherwise I would invest in the pre-level 11 abilities more. 2) Reckless Assault offers damage and accuracy, Savage Attack offers damage but reduces accuracy. There's no contest in my mind, even if you want to make your Rogue tanky if you're running a large shield you can almost think of it has having that large shield for free, but with more damage (+8 Reckless Assault accuracy, -8 shield accuracy, x1.2 damage) - at least kinda if you ignore the sucky Deflection of the Rogue to begin with. In any case, if your going for DPS you're not going to be caring overly about your Deflection, and if you're going tank the benefit far outweighs the cost. Reducing accuracy, even if it's just melee accuracy, never is a great idea IMO - if you really want an extra ability slot take Savage Attack instead but otherwise I'd always take Reckless Assault. 3) I thought Might and Reckless Assault were at least multiplicative, I've not really drilled down into the numbers I'm getting to confirm this yet (and besides I've yet to get Deathblows on my solo play to see its effects). Regardless, MIG is definitely useful for things like spell scrolls/bindings on a Rogue - with the Rogue's high natural accuracy you can really get good hits in with these and they also benefit from Deathblows. Overall, I'd say mainly for debuff duration so you can proc Deathblows, INT is the most important attribute on a Rogue. Whether you are going tanky or DPS, you definitely don't want to dump this - and I'd really say you should be looking at least 15 for a minimum.

Thought I'd go for the old grave dig, anyway... does Azzuro have memory? As in, if he's offered you and item in the past is he now less likely to offer you that item again in the future or at least consecutively? I'm at a stage currently where I was offered Hiro's Mantle while traveling a large distance (ironically to get Azzuro to leave my Stronghold after his dilemma as I thought that's when he offered you items, but apparently a doppelgänger can show up too and sell you stuff during that period) and given the context I thought, "Well that was a strange bug, still I'm sure he'll offer it again soon," however now all I'm getting are his crap items now I've built up sufficient fat stacks to chain rest at the Stronghold - with Hiro's Mantle being the last item he offered me. I pretty much need it for my current build to be good, Sura's Supper Plate would be a very short term solution as my build really benefits from having a bash shield too. If a dev has any idea of whether he offers items consecutively after "rejecting" it first time round (or someone else who has witnessed it first hand, however information surrounding Azzuro is always shaky) I would really appreciate it. I'm fine sinking a good couple of hours into this before giving up hope and trying to progress anyway (which I already have done past the point I thought I would without a Retaliation item a little bit) but if I'm literally trying for the impossible I obviously don't want to waste my time. EDIT: Never mind, I've seen him offer me Wurmwool consecutively without me taking him up on his first offer - so it must be possible. I've even been offered Hiro's Mantle (not consecutively, with his other garbage in between), however because the damn Stronghold announcements are too slow I've rested past the initial offer without even realising (there's enough of a delay that the offer for an item can still pop up even after Azzuro's left ). On the plus side, I've realised that with +50 security you no longer seemingly ever deal with Stronghold attacks. So now I'm having to chain rest at a slightly moderate speed, but not too fast that I miss the juicy offers - what an unimaginable thrill ride I'm having. Whoever on the dev team thought Azzuro was a dandy idea needs a good flogging, and no I'm not going to sink to consoling myself the item - that's what you want me to do.

I think they definitely should sort the bug out with defense stacking on quick save/quick load in some areas. As someone who saves extremely regularly (force of habit for any PC game given most of them have some bugs) it'd be nice not to be somewhat penalised for this.

I think stuff like the crucifixions in New Vegas would be off-putting to a sensitive player even if you did avoid combat, let alone things like implied rape of that woman near a caravan early on. Plus you're likely to witness gory violence even if you don't take part in it in New Vegas (NCR vs Fiends, NCR vs Legion, the Kings vs random mugger scumbags - etc.). For the same reasons (depiction of rape and public execution both lying smack bang on the critical path, some grisly text descriptions) I would say sensitive players should give Pillars a wide berth. Likely as not, pretty much all Obsidian future games are going to keep this adult tone (e.g. Tyranny, PoE 2 if made, a WoD game if made, etc.) or with games like Armored Warfare it seems like they're pretty much a shooter in the first place (though it might be more tank-on-tank action rather than blood and guts). Off the top of my head games that can be done without killing anyone are games like Arcanum (I did a no kills playthrough a while back, with one instance where I had to get one guy to kill some guards to progress at the end of the game and I think I had to beat people unconscious a few times), but again it's tricky as just like Pillars they're designed for combat. JRPGs are also good, but I find many of the turn based ones very restrictive in the role-playing choices you get.

The only thing that really springs to mind that is similar is Retaliation for a Rogue, but yeah it does seem like many high CON builds get more benefit out of dumping RES rather than boosting it for all the per crit proc items (Shod in Faith being the major one).

"Giving companions something to do" to me feels a little hollow, as I thought the main point of companions was for them to be interesting and offer something in a narrative sense. To get a load of companions you don't need and then just say I want you to go off on this random adventure because I say so seems to diminish the companion characters' role in the story. I would rather, even playing with a party, only take on companions I want for story reasons - rather than have a slew of them as pointless odd-job men because I want the sweet loot. How does any of that really reinforce roleplaying, rather than it being an arbitrary an exploitative choice of companions you're supposed to care about? In terms of self-elected difficulty, I'm cool with solo PotD being a higher difficulty level. However, is there really a single tangible item that lowers difficulty with what I'm proposing? I really don't think there is, as I said it's just a case of denying options. On my current playthrough, I guess maybe the Helwax Mold would allow me to duplicate a per rest spellbound item and get another use of it - but that's really not so much a difficultly thing as it is "how often can I be bothered to get rest supplies" thing. A lot of the stronghold items just allow for more offense (concentration items), however you can easily play those builds solo already within certain classes so long as they kite (Ranger) - so it really isn't to me a case of difficulty. I suppose some people may think that have a companion in the adventure resolve statement is important, but really who cares if "Sagani" was replaced with "Roger - the cheap guy I hired" instead? I'd wager no one, all people care about is the loot in the first instance. It'd be useful if people said they play solo or not from the off, rather than people who don't play solo saying what restrictions they believe should be placed on solo without experience. I'm not trying to get anyone's back up, but it seems like there's a lot of "it makes the solo game easier" without substantiation of why it makes the solo game easier - which I'd certainly appreciate if anyone has that experience of both play-styles.

A masterful dissemination of the mechanics, as always.

I do get that it wasn't designed with solo in mind, but it seems like it would be an extremely easy change to make. Making a minor tweak to unlock a whole load more solo options seems like a good idea in terms of effort spent to do it in relation to the satisfaction of the fanbase who like playing solo. Not that I'm not satisfied, but more options are always a little better.

The difference is many people aren't happy to cheat, including me. I'm perfectly fine with the status quo, but as I said I don't really feel that making these items available does reduce challenge - just that it frees up more options for builds and role-playing. There's plenty of builds going solo for all classes that are perfectly viable, making these items available just adds more equally viable builds to solo play that you can't have currently. More options to me means more fun, more variation per class and hence more solo-replayability. Beyond that, as I said the distinction between sending some companions and hiring some dude for a one off adventure does feel arbitrary. For people requiring escorts, you can either send companions or pay them off - the paying off presumably equating to them hiring security for the trip (hence why Twin Elms supplicants cost more). Further for dilemmas you often throwing money at them which equates to people being hired as physical security (Azzuro, etc.). There's no sensical reason why this couldn't also apply to adventures. As I said, I'm perfectly happy with the challenge of solo PotD, my current build is getting along fine and on this particular build there aren't even any adventure based items that would improve it (a perfect point of why I don't think these items make solo PotD any easier). However for future playthroughs, seeing as a load of these neat and unique items were solely consigned to party play, it might be fun to have them somehow in solo - beyond more or less cheating as you say. I honestly prefer playing solo (it's normally what I play in games even when companions are on offer, e.g. I always solo Arcanum and FO:NV) and as I said there isn't really a tangible reason why you can't hire a guy (and them not count as a companion) to go do this for you.

So I thought I'd make the thread about allowing access to Stronghold items in solo play, and see if people thought whether this was a good or bad idea. As you can't recruit companions going full solo, I'd imagine you could have an option to hire people (that don't class as companions - kind of like how you can often hire people in the new Stronghold dilemma scenarios) to go get them for you. Whether this would incur some sort of penalty (more turns taken as random minions aren't as resourceful as a companion, or less cash loot demonstrating the hired blade pocketing some for themselves) would really be up to the devs, though obviously suggestions are welcome. I will say this isn't about making solo play "easier", none of the new items really would make things dramatically easier or different to current solo play. However there certainly are a few which if in play allow for more role-playing and/or build options - the Belt of Chimes/Swaddling Sheet would allow for many more low RES builds to be viable on solo play other than kite builds (for those who wanted to play someone weak willed), the Crossed Patch could allow a solo Powder Burns Ranger to be much more viable, the Helwax Mold could allow for duplication of an attribute boosting weapon (i.e. Whispers of Yenwood) to allow for a significant and cool stacking affect, etc. This isn't to say I'm not fine with the current situation, just that it feels a little like an arbitrary restriction rather than something which makes logical sense for it being in place. Thoughts one way or the other would be greatly appreciated, sorry if a specific thread was already produced for this and had been shelved - I guess if there was I need to brush up on my search-fu.

Sounds like a pretty sweet build, making the most out of invisibility backstabs as many different ways as possible. I'd normally advocate high INT, but to be honest base 10 seconds should be enough after a per encounter ability to then use invisibility and get in a Deathblows backstab. For the stronghold items (Belt of Chimes and Swaddling Sheet), you'll need to send a companion to get them - so it depends how strictly you want to solo (as in, you can recruit a companion just for that purpose but then the game will state you've had someone in your party). If that's the kind of thing that'll bother you retraining some points into RES, or chugging Spirit Shield potions like no tomorrow. It's a bit of a shame there isn't a talent to boost concentration, as it seems by not having one you're only really penalising solo players as party players can just get the aforementioned items. I'd love to see a class build when you get far along with this build, I'm currently playing through with my own tank Rogue on solo which I'm waiting to crack into the game with until posting up the build (it's already written up).

To be honest, most of the time I find it a little better to save those per encounter abilities anyway. Sure your alpha strike isn't as strong as it would be if the game wasn't bugged, but it means you can dish out more consistent strong hits over the course of the encounter.

I really have a strong liking for Rogues. People seem to think they're now out-matched in terms of DPS, and they probably are, but they're so easy to use and I think they're realised very nicely conceptually (taking broken DnD Backstab mechanics and making them more sensible). Also I think they're extremely versatile, I'm currently soloing a tank Rogue - because of their easy ways to increase damage (Reckless Assault, Sneak Attack, Deathblows, Dirty/Vicious FIghting) coupled to their naturally high accuracy it's trivial to maintain a good damage output while investing heavily in your defense. With Sneak Attacks/Dirty+Vicious Fighting/Deathblows now working with Retaliate (and Retaliate triggering Deep Wounds) their ability to tank is now even better (at 21 Might Deep Wounds does 4 damage per tick, and if you have Intellect 20 you're getting 5 ticks, so in a minute you're doing 80 damage from Retaliate for just sitting there against all melee foes), and then when you think about spell scrolls also benefitting from Deathblows there's a literal crap load of roles they can have. So yeah, Rogues = good.

It definitely does work with sneak attack, see my thread here. This is for 3.02, where they made Retaliate roll to hit - which so far seems beneficial more than anything.