Jojobobo

I don't have numbers but I know my Rogue hasn't had any trouble hitting level 4 (probably maxing at level 5 even if I don't go to Dyrford Village) in act I, which is how it was before patch 1.05. I've noticed a couple of drops in experience (for example I'm sure when I originally met Raedric and agreed to kill Kolsc, it would give 500+ experience, here it gave somewhat less than that). From this I'm assuming maybe it was Defiance Bay that got tuned down more, and as you say it could be that quests which were in progress before the upgrade remain unaffected.

Rogue is good, and not actually that much micro-management - I'm currently soloing one on PotD. Reckless Assault allows for huge damage, and sneak attack statuses are easy to inflict with either Crippling or Blinding Strike (lasting for 10 juicy seconds at 10 Int), or just flanking. I'm playing one with high deflection (shock, horror!) and the tankiness vs DPS is quite good (most of the other classes have to bust their balls for the kind of benefits that Reckless Assault offers, and even then you can mitigate nearly all of the deflection loss from it with the Deflective Assault talent). All that said, the Barbarian is also very fun. I just wanted to put forward that Rogues aren't as high maintenance as people think.

Yep, sorry, western.

Correct, a new question anyone?

So I thought I'd make a game. The idea is to post a question/riddle about game mechanics or lore (I think it will be more mechanics based which is why I posted it in this subforum) that you think will be difficult to solve and then people try and answer it. The person who does posts their question, and the process continues (or if they just wanted to answer and not post a question, they can say as much and then whoever posts a question next sets the new question - other questions posted after will be ignored). Only one question/riddle at any time, and if no one can solve the riddle in a few days (let's say something around three max) then the poster reveals the answer and can either post another question or abstain (again a first come first served basis for who sets the next question). There's no need for the original poster to confirm a correct answer if someone is sure, though if it was a complete guess then by all means they can say whether it was right or not. Questions can be as focussed or as loose as you like, for example something like how can you hit a specific fortitude score at a certain level with a certain class by a certain location would be a perfectly fine example of a focussed question. Spoilers are quite welcome. Let your imagination run wild! Now for my question: How can you level up Calisca before she dies?

If you unlock fast travelling to the Bridge from Black Meadow, but instead use the exit near the Inn in Gilded Vale to fast travel there, you appear on the eastern side of the Bridge map and can avoid the Xaurip entirely allowing you to complete the task for the Defiance Bay trap maker for extra XP. I don't Triple Crown but I do solo on PotD.

That's cool, I usually can't be bothered to read the books (I did first playthrough, but they're pretty dry and a lot of historical exposition is revealed in game any way) but it's nice to know that if I fancy a reading binge I can do.

It doesn't happen to me, what class are you playing? Maybe it's something specific to some classes that regenerate stamina at a greater clip (e.g. fighters).

I really don't think Pillars has a dump stat problem. In my mind a dump stat is one that for any class or build that stat is consistently poor or useless - which just does not happen in PoE (some stats are more useful then others, Con being perhaps the weakest, but not a single one of them could be more or less universally dumped on any build - and each one will also find use on at least one kind of build). Min-maxing is a whole different thing to dump stats, and there's nothing really wrong with it; if people want to optimise a character towards a certain end then fine, that does not mean the stat system is broken (for example I'm soloing a rogue right now and I couldn't dump anything without feeling the pinch so every stat is a minimum 10). If you want to arrange a party where people are stupidly min-maxed (Ciphers with a Con of 3, Moon Godlike Fighters with Might and Int of 3 to cover the Cipher) then that is really your prerogative. Besides you can max two stats straight in character creation and not minimise anything - so it's fairly ludicrous to paint min-maxing as a necessary part of making a good character. If you play games like Arcanum where Beauty and Constitution there are more or less completely rubbish, or Fallout 3/New Vegas where even a social character who wants followers you can easily set Charisma to 1 and not feel the burn, then you can see what a true universally useless dump stat is.

They only heal once from what I've seen and there seems to be a large cool down between spells. Get some Jolting Touch scrolls, endurance potions, summon items and lay some traps and they're easy enough to solo even on PotD - based on doing it myself. It's a tough fight but by no means unbalanced.

Back to the actual changelog, I was very worried the quest XP rebalancing doesn't seem to have affected early levels too much. Whilst this may lead to a weird feeling of level progression (fast, then very slow) it works very nicely for solo play or I'd imagine any play (the first few levels seem much more crucial in cementing a build rather than later ones). Kudos for the developers factoring all this in and making a leveling scheme that, whilst not necessarily linear, works like a treat within the scope of the game (this is assuming people don't still hit level 12 easily before Twin Elms, I haven't progressed that far but I assume their not telling me porkies). I approve of the all the rebalance changes I've heard of so far, a good effort.

Looks like for the mac install from GOG I'm going to have to wipe my game again to get around the "This patch will not work with your game version!" problem. What larks.

Well that's good to know, hopefully additional patches will have much more subtle differences.

I think it's fine; it's semi-situational if people close the distance (though granted with the right party that isn't going to happen) and +4 accuracy, whilst nice, isn't a hugely dramatic boost. I guess it just illustrates how crappy the other racial abilities are, but that's not a bad thing as it more or less means you're not crapped on for playing pretty much any race.

Beta testers were a small sample size that were never going to be the end-all for opinions on game balance. I guess it just seems weird to me that stuff like paralysis traps slipped through the cracks though without a nerf, some stuff it seems should have come across as pretty blatantly overpowered. It seems like I've been slightly misinterpreted - I'm not saying there shouldn't be gameplay and balance tweaks on going for ages, but I do wish they'd hurry along those major changes like their making currently like restructuring experience for the entire game. It stuff like that I want sorted quickly, as going from 1.04 to 1.05 in some ways will be like going onto a different game in that so much changes - which is why I wouldn't feel comfortable playing a 1.04 character in 1.05 (they be leveled way higher for one thing than they should be).

I guess I was curious as to when overhaul patching (where large bits of the game's mechanics are completely rebalanced) will end? From my perspective, every time the game's mechanics are severely tweaked (the big three coming in 1.05 being a complete alteration to experience rewards, the retaliation nerf and nerfs to some paralysis effects) I feel obligated to start again even if my save is retroactively brought up to speed as so much changes and my character has benefitted from so much that now isn't in the patch is doesn't feel like a very legitimate playthrough any more. With the amount of restarts I've had to make just because of bugs (and common reasons for RPG re-rolling, like finding an appropriate difficulty you like and wanting to stick with it or testing different classes) I've now done the initial areas of the game many more times than I would have liked, and having many more huge rebalance patches will only make this worse. This isn't to say I don't that I don't think rebalancing was necessary or that the rebalances brought in aren't worthwhile (though really this should have been mostly resolved in beta testing), but I hope that huge game-changing rebalancing can be completed fairly swiftly and subsequent patches will be of the minor tweak variety so there won't be this meteoric shift in gameplay each time (and hence wouldn't feel compelled to re-roll as nothing significant will have changed). Anyone else get this feeling? I guess beyond anything else I'm just hoping to pressurise Obsidian

I wouldn't mind more VO than PoE, but I wouldn't want it to take away from other areas of the game significantly. If they have the budget to spalsh out and other areas not take a hit then sure, if not then PoE levels are fine.

It seems like this patch is going to be pretty punitive on solo PotD players early game - Fan of Flames damage has been nerfed meaning a much harder time getting through the bears and phantoms/shadows at Caed Nua and the Temple of Eothas. This in turn really railroads attempts to get to level 4 (the bench mark where things usually get better due to access to Vulnerable Attack and the fine enchantment) - as you'll likely need to wait until a higher level to do some of these encounters, which means that reaching that higher level is all the more difficult because of not being able to do these experience heavy encounters. Obviously the Second Wind activating even if you're the only party member is a boon to solo play, but unless you kill Eder early solo players aren't going to have access to anything like that. I guess solo play is supposed to be difficult, but hopefully this is the kind of difficult that doesn't make certain solo builds more or less impossible as you can't progress past Caed Nua to the experience cash cow that is Defiance Bay. I suppose maybe they haven't messed with act I experience too much, which would render this point mostly moot. Apart from that, the balances seem pretty solid - especially the Cipher focus pool nerf and the retaliate damage nerf. The only thing that does seem off to me is the passive mechanics thing; detecting at 4 levels lower is too low for this to be useful - meaning that people are still going to be stealthing everywhere (no one is going to have mechanics 4 levels higher than necessary just to move a bit more freely, especially as you may as well level up other skills that could have gone into mechanics). Detecting at 2 levels lower - I could see that working (especially as you could buff your mechanics with scrolls if you were that desperate to run around) - but 4 levels lower seems completely useless for what they're aiming for (i.e. not constantly stealthing).

Maybe we're not all into interspecies coupling like you b0sruk... I'm joking of course. I guess some couples would probably want to have sex but not want to have the resulting kids until Waidwen's Legacy has been taken care of or animancy has progressed sufficiently to deal with the issues of having a hollowborn. The majority of these couples would likely be same species because it's the norm (as in before Waidwen's Legacy couple would marry their species and have kids, which is likely still the trend despite having kids being problematic now).

I found them a bit underwhelming, and even the bear is pretty sucky at tanking (even with Resilient Companion) for any decent stretch of time. Ciphers seemed to do ranged much better.

Gotta get that antelope bestiary experience.

Can you sneak to get it, or must some Drakes be defeated on the way? I was pondering this for a solo run, but never got around to trying it out (plus I don't know where the stash is located as I'd never had mechanics 10 getting there either).

If you were going DPS, I would have a look at the Priest talents and pick a deity who's weapon accuracy bonuses you like. +10 accuracy on a weapon is a pretty big deal, if you were to take than and a corresponding Weapon Focus you'd be just as accurate with a couple of weapons as a fighter (not that you'd necessarily need to take both the Weapon Focus and the deity talent).

So people seem to be achieving the Triple Crown now, I was wondering if anyone wanted to attempt the Double Triple Crown? The idea - minimise all your attributes on character creation, then try a normal Triple Crown playthrough. If anyone could manage it (with literally any Class or Race) then I think they should go down in PoE history forever. I guess the Triple Triple Crown would be for notoriously bad race/class combinations and lacking any stat boosting gear. Something that's achievable, or no way Jose? Not that I'm going to try this ludicrous challenge, I'm happy with solo PotD - maybe regular TC if I feel like making a particularly minmaxed character - but hey I'm not a masochist like some of you

In general, I think they should lower XP generally but buff it for party members missing from your team (maybe significantly so if you're running solo). Such an XP system would encourage people playing parties of less than 6 to level a smaller party higher, which currently isn't really something people care for.