Hiro Protagonist II

Totally understand. For example, my Cipher likely won't pick a talent where it's tied to a skill like Stealth or Mechanics even though the talent might be good in combat. What I'll do is look at all the talents that have say the Lore skill attached to them and then pick the best talent out of them. And that talent is just as good as the other one I didn't pick and I get both the talent and skill. Or there might be a talent with both Lore and Survival which I can use both skills for dialogue but the talent is just as useful. What I'm doing is roleplaying to a degree or some people might see it as metagaming and trying to open up more dialogue choices but also those talents are still useful in combat.

Actually, I should say I'm picking talents with skills that have a benefit with each for my character over another talent that might be viable but I don't choose it because it has a skill that serves no benefit to me. Some people might see that as powergaming. I'm trying to get both from a combat and non-combat (usually dialogue) benefit with the one choice.

I agree. It's a numbers game and I'm picking talents due to skills and not necessarily for the talents themselves.

Hey us powergamers need love too.

Everything is a bit of a mess and I need to clean everything up. I did screen shots of the area maps and noted the locations of every critter, log entries of each reward, all the kill xp rewards, and a rough optimal way of getting the pages. I'll post what I've come up with probably tomorrow. But I found it funny when I killed the Spider Queen and the XP reward for it.

I'm finding them harder to kill in this update but I haven't really been paying much attention to the combat. I was more trying to get all the critter locations on every map and the most optimal way of getting all the kill xp reward Cyclopaedia pages and what critters you can avoid in subsequent playthroughs.

Yeah, although the A.I. is still exploitable as shown below. Also, there seems to be a bit of a traffic jam with crossing the river. You can lure the beetles near the statue back onto the crossing with your BB Fighter and take them on one at a time while the rest of the beetles have to wait behind in a line. And your wizard can go to town throwing fireballs killing the ones at the back.

Quite a lot of changes in this update. I said I was going to give this update a miss but the bestiary kill xp piqued my curiosity and how it was going to be implemented. I've made a bestiary kill xp chart highlighting all the enemies on each map, where they are, the amounts you receive and the most optimal routes in getting the Cyclopaedia pages. Interesting. Also, character creation, skills, level up, talents, .... hmm.

Also Gamma Ray Blaster can do burst. Goes from 6 to 8 AP. That's over 300+ damage to a robot. Around the 330-360 damage range. For my walkthrough, there's a few ways to do Canyon of Titan and Temple of Titan. It's been interesting finding out the different ways and you can't do everything. Even as far back as saving the Ag Center or Highpool can affect some things. Also, if you have a high enough Perception you can find stuff at the Mysterious Shrines. For example, this is what I found at the Cubes Shrine between Temple of Titan and Damonta

Oh dear is quite right...

ah okay. I was wondering why some humans were getting a lot more damage and others weren't. Also, I wouldn't mind having an extra 2 action points for Pizepi. Burst with pulse rifle and swap to Gamma Ray Blaster would do over 200 damage to a robot. I could get another 2 APs when I hit level 40.

Never seen you cite actual gameplay from the beta. It's usually been conjecture, hypothesising and a lot of 7 paragraph posts taking a counterpoint to anything negative with the game from certain posters. Even other people have asked whether you've played the beta because a lot of what you say is conjecture. Never said your entire existence is a big WTF for me. But nice try to make it out that it was. I said being a beta participant and categorically refusing to cite any specific actual gameplay and not telling anyone about it including the dev's which this beta is for is a big WTF for me. Even refusing to cite specific examples with the bug forum. Citing specific gameplay examples on this forum is a good thing for the dev's. It's a way to improve the game. Not the usual conjecture you go on about.

Again, what's with this 'lesser quantity of empirical experience' business? If you experience problems, anomalies or just things that can be improved by citing actual gameplay, then the argument with 'lesser experience' doesn't stand. And citing specific gameplay is a good thing for the dev's. Otherwise a lot of your posts are just noise. You can play the beta for 10 minutes and notice things that are different to the IE games and not for the better. The fact that you refuse to cite any specific actual gameplay is what's laughable. That's one thing the dev's want and it's something you refuse to do. As I said, it's a big WTF for me. It's not a case of beta testers not giving feedback, it's more that you categorically refuse to cite any specific actual gameplay at all and haven't done so since the beta went live and you now have confirmed you won't.

I don't understand what you mean by 'experienced with the actual beta as others'. Playing the beta for a few hours would highlight some glaring problems with the gameplay. Playing it for any length of time when there's a new update, say 10-20 hours total which I don't see as particularly long would highlight those problems even more. You don't even need to play 10 or 20 hours. You made a comment not long ago thinking you can transition anywhere along the side of a map which even at a cursory glance playing the beta would tell you this is not the case and never has been when the beta went live. To be honest, I've never seen you make any comments about actual gameplay, give specific examples from the beta or even report a bug, even though you've asked many times to the dev's in other threads with how to report or give feedback on bugs. And now you make a comment with not giving any specific feedback from the beta. lol wut? What I've bolded and underlined is a big WTF for me. Seriously, you're not going to cite any specific feedback on actual gameplay? LOL.

I was comparing single shots to get an approximate or average damage per shot. (Also, I was going up against robots with 90hps. I didn't want to waste bullets with burst while Pizepi can one shot them.) Switching to burst mode for M16, AP goes from 5 to 7. You get three bullets. Average 120 damage if you're doing around 40 per bullet. Pizepi can have both the Gamma Ray Blaster and Pulse Rifle in single shot be used in the same turn. The Pulse Rifle does around 35 damage per shot on top of the 100+ damage from the Gamma Ray Blaster to robots. I'm doing around 150 damage a turn with Pizepi. I've also noticed energy weapons are very effective against humans who have little armour. It's only when humans have quite a bit of armour is when energy weapons start to suck. Whenever I see a robot or honeybadger, I think great, Pizepi will cut through them.

I don't understand why some people are suggesting energy weapons aren't that great. I'll admit against heavily armoured humans like raiders, they're not as effective but against more dangerous threats like Honeybadgers and robots, they're fantastic. I'm at the Abandoned Railway and here's screenshots of M16s vs Energy Weapons. And these are average damage. No critical hits. Pizepi is doing more damage than any other person, even if they get two shots off with their M16. Maybe it changes in California? I'll have to find out. After this map, I'm off to Damonta. Oh and if anyone wants to know, this is how you get the Kevlar Armour in Temple of Titan. I consider it to be the best armour I've found so far. Armour rating of 5 with no Strength requirements or minus combat speed modifiers like you get with Combat Armour.

With the Smart/Kick/Hard Ass dialogue skills, the game seems to go up in steps and then plateaus for a while. So at the start, I put 2 points in each skill and it was enough for me to open those dialogue options. Then sometime in the game, it'll ask for around 4 or 5 points in that skill and then plateau for a while. Then halfway through the game you'll need to put more points in them to get them around 6, 7 for most encounters or a couple of encounters with 8 but not absolutely necessary. There are also items in the game that can give you a +1 to these skills, if you find them. I've been doing my own walkthrough which is why I'm taking so long and I've even found a guy who gives you the best armour in the game for free at this current stage of the game where I'm up to. I still haven't finished Arizona yet. All due to dialogue. Normally you might talk to this person of just ignore him. There's a specific dialogue tree you have to go through and need Smart Ass (4) and Kick Ass (5) to get it. Even if you have those skills and don't go through the dialogue tree the 'correct' way to get the armour, you won't get the armour. 'Correct' being subjective because it depends how you roleplay your group. And I just checked a couple of walkthroughs and they make no mention of this armour or dialogue skills at all. Volo is right in that you can't do every quest. It's impossible due to previous actions in the game. And even if you do the same quest or talk to the same person as me, we'll probably have different experiences.

I have to admit I voted for rtwp. Having played PoE and WL2 and if rtwp isn't done right, then I'd rather have turn based. Seeing the focus with this game isn't combat, then I'm all for turn based now.

Are you not turning a turtle over through "purely physical force"? What other force are you using if it's not physical? Telekinesis?

Brute Force isn't just about strength and knocking down a door. It can also be used on a turtle that's on its back and you use it to flip the turtle on it's legs. Also demolitions wouldn't fall under the same category because brute force is a combination of things from your body like using your legs to kick down a door. Demolitions is more mechanical with disarming traps and explosives. How do you brute force a land mine? You don't. You disarm it.

I can not emphasize enough with putting points in the 3 ass skills. I just came up to Sadler from the Diamondback Militia and the exchange between him and my party was hilarious. And this is where an item from a toaster comes into it. Video exchange between him and my party. Two options: Smart Ass (4) and Kiss Ass (5) is more rewarding. There is another option with Hard Ass (7) and Kiss Ass (7) and the reward is pretty crap which is surprising considering it's harder to get with those dialogue options.

I have to admit with playing WL2 and an enemy runs up to me. When it's my turn to do something, it does feel 'funny' that I can move away without provoking an AoO. Not a fault of WL2. You can do that with a lot of games including the IE games. More that I think it's all my years of pnp and recently playing over 50 hours of PoE that I expect it from other games now. Have to play other games and get this AoO mindset out of my system.

The WL2 camera thing was about how I enjoy the combat in WL2, it's fun, tactical and I use a lot of cover all the time. Cover isn't really something you use in PoE or the IE games but when I use it in WL2, I like to see how things line up or if one of my party members is in the way in case of friendly fire. So I rotate the camera around and check. Not something that's relevant in PoE. I agree PoE needs to go more in the direction of the IE games and it needs a lot of work to get there imo..

Damn, I got hit on the outer edge of a mad monk with his nuke and it blew the clothes off three of my characters. lol Awesome animation when it went off. Loved the mushroom cloud and everything else but now I'm off to get some clothes for them. Looks funny with them walking around in their board shorts and nothing else.

I didn't gimp my core team to get Pizepi. In fact my core team Is so OP that I leave one of them out of combat all the time and have been doing that very early in the game. So I only have 3 in my core team that fights. It's quite easy to get her if you know how to boost your Charisma. I just went straight for her at a lowish level and found she's like another 'Angela' when you do get her early. She has similar hit points as Angela despite being two levels lower than Angela when I got her. When you're doing 70+ min damage on a honeybadger with the Meson Cannon, I think it's pretty good. I usually see between 70-85 damage on the honeybadgers. And the Meson Cannon at Ranger Citadel costs $1 to buy from Mercaptain with a requisition. You can get the cannon anytime during the Rail Nomads quest line. You just need to finish a very easy quest at Rail Nomads and then you can go back to Ranger Citadel and pick up the cannon - even before you get Pizepi. I have no idea of the late game so I'll have to wait and see, but with Arizona she rocks. She's becoming my favourite NPC. And I'm saving my skill points (she has 18 atm and on level 20) and has enough to put 6 in AR if I choose. I'm finishing off Canyon of Titan atm so I know there'll be more skill points for her later. I think she's great. Maybe it might be a different story if you get her late and if you took skills she had, then yeah I can see how she would suck. But if you get her early and know what skills she has like I did, then she's another Angela.