Hiro Protagonist II

I'd like to know as well. I'm seeing more hits than grazes in the latest update.

Sure, do a video. I'd like to see you do it on Hard and have half your party out of the battle and not doing anything most of the time. Funny how I never have to reload. In fact, I said two of my characters didn't do anything for most of the battle with only casting one spell. And another two casted a couple of spells and didn't do anything for the rest of the battle. So yes, lets see that video of you having party members stand at a distance and not do anything for most of the battle.

So this system.... (gasp) favours min / maxing??? I disappoint. Very much so. I've been min-maxing ever since the beta went live. This new update favours it even more. Add in the nude strategy as well to make combat faster for your characters. I killed Medreth's gang quite easily as well. I just tried the Medreth fight again and my characters were level 5 and levelled up to 6 when the fight started. This was on Hard. Only my Fighter took some damage. Battle was over in around 10-15 seconds. It was mostly the Fighter and Rogue. Fighter was doing a lot of damage. Wizard casted a couple of Fireballs. Cipher used a couple of spells. Priest only casted Interdiction. And then I didn't use her in the fight. Druid only Casted Insect Swarm on Medreth. And then I didn't use her in the fight.

Lucky my Rogue got that sneak attack off. Otherwise I would have missed out on that extra 1 point of damage.

The rogue is pretty bad at sneak attack. Here's a screen shot where my Rogue does 6 damage with a Hit (Not a graze) with Sneak Attack. Due to the enemy's AoE, I let my party auto attack because I had no idea who they were attacking or where they were. I was even surprised my Rogue sneak attacked because I had no idea where she was in the fight. And was like WTF when she only did 6 damage. I also left my Fighter and Cipher lie on the ground because a) I had no idea where they were and b) my other characters were killing the enemies on auto attack so I just watched on in amusement.

Serious? I found them easier in this update than previous updates. In fact I've found every fight seems to have been toned down quite considerably.

LOL. The Fighter I think is fine for now but the Rogue obviously needs to do be fixed and do more damage with sneak attack, but I chalk it up to a 'fix' in my book with the Fighter.

One possible problem with that Hormalach is when you skew the view to how it is in the game, some of that may be lost. And with some aoe spells, like the priests and druid spells hitting the ground (which I think is over the top and need to be toned down), it would blend into everything else like it does now. I preferred how it was in the IE games. You click on one of your party members and the selection circle around the enemy it was targeting would change and pulsate.

^ I think there might be Stealth and Mechanics checks in dialogue in different parts of the game but we haven't seen it yet. We've seen Survival (Ogre) and Lore. But for me, even if you spread your points out to be a Jack of all Trades character, you'll most likely won't have enough points to open up all the dialogue options and will probably miss out on most options by spreading your points too far and not having enough. So for me, I would concentrate on opening one (Lore) or two (Survival) dialogue options to capture that additional dialogue, maybe a third one and forgetting about the other two skills and leave them for NPCs. But even if you do specialise in two skills, then that leaves 3 left for the rest of your party. With the exception of Stealth and Mechanics for the rogue, I'm finding Athletics to be an important skill overall to give to all my companions and leaving the rest.

There's less trash mobs if you take the optimal route with avoiding fights and it's a lot easier fighting one beetle at a time instead of four. I don't fight wolves.

Yeah, I'm noticing the arrows are disappearing with aoe effects. I'm now finding it more difficult as I use my aoe spells more often. I have no idea who's attacking who when the flashy ground spell effects are going off.

I wonder how many people will go back and disarm traps for extra xp. I noticed on my play through of the beta, I can find traps but my BB Rogue doesn't have enough points in Mechanics to disarm them. Interesting that I have enough points in Mechanics to find them but not disarm them. At least I can walk around them for now.

I think there will be some similarities but also a lot of differences. I'm looking forward to it.

Yeah, I prefer the way it's done in the IE games, but at least the arrows are better than nothing. Although the arrows can be confusing because at least one enemy (the Ogre) had two arrows pointing at my BB Fighter and BB Rogue at the same time even though he was hitting my Fighter. Maybe that was his ogre sweep where he can target more than one character?

Some things I like so far: - Combat feels much better. It's improving. - Enemies don't sprint across the screen. - Enemies have arrows showing who they attack. (Awesome) - Fighter is doing a lot of damage. Even more damage than my Rogue with Sneak attack. - New power / spell icons for the characters look great. - Stealth filling up the characters circles look better than the placeholder rings from previous builds. - Footsteps. - Feedback is a lot better and clearer in the dialogue box. - Less trash mobs in Dyrford Crossing. - Autosave with leaving/entering new areas. (Awesome)

Actually, I think the stealth is triggering enemies in other rooms. Obviously a bug of some sort where enemies can tell your characters are nearby. Here's a screen shot where I triggered a guy in another room and he went aggro and triggered a trap. Even though it says mechanics required. This was the second time I triggered him. First time I didn't try the door. My rogue just went to the area where my guys are now and triggered him.

Found an easy way to reset the merchants gold. Just enter the inn and then come back out and Hendyna will have another 3000 coins. Had to do that three or four times to sell everything in my inventory.

I min-maxed my Cipher. He has Might 21 and INT 3. Con is also a dump stat at this stage since he's on the back line. This is what an INT 3 Cipher can do.

That's right in what you say that it's only your PC. The companion's skills have no effect in dialogue. They are only there for 'tasks' like pushing the stone statue (BB Fighter can push it) and things Mechanics for the Rogue, Stealth can help with all characters, Athletics the same for all characters to combat fatigue, and survival to help with potions. Some are going to be dump skills like mechanics for most of your characters, except for the Rogue or your main PC with a mechanics dialogue check if indeed there is a dialogue check for mechanics. If there's no dialogue check, then I wouldn't be investing in that skill for my main character. I did notice there is a survival check with the Ogre, but I didn't invest in it. I just killed the ogre. I will say combat is a lot better now and he was a pushover. LOL. Barely any health lost on my BB Fighter. He's the only one with armour while all my other characters are nude.

I should clarify with my posts above. Characters like My BB Priest's and BB Wizards skills are all worthless in the context of 'tasks'. if I have to do a task, my character (Cipher) or other companions can do those tasks without the help of the BB Wizard or BB Priest. Also, Mechanics, Stealth and Lore seem to be dump skills for characters like the BB Wizard and BB Priest in my party and the only good skills are Athletics (counters fatigue) and possibly Survival (longer duration of things like potions). However, since the BB Wizard and BB Priest are usually ranged characters due to their low health compared to other characters (due to the new health mechanic) and not really front line fighters, they probably won't be chugging potions all the time so then Athletics becomes the main skill for me to choose to counter fatigue and avoiding those penalties associated with fatigue.

Certain tasks do make them obsolete. For example lock picking. Why would you have a second character have a high mechanics skill? Also, if a task asks you to send a character to do something, like cross a ravine with a grappling hook and rope you send the one with the highest skill and the rest of your party follows automatically. There's also no way I'm going to put points in Mechanics for my Cipher when my Rogue already does a good job at that. Stealth or Athletics? Maybe. But I'd rather put points in skills like Lore because that opens up dialogue options. Does mechanics or stealth open dialogue options? No? Then it's better to give those skills to an NPC. And if I'm pumping points in Lore to open up dialogue options, then what is my BB Wizard going to do? The game doesn't recognise lore in dialogue options with my BB Wizard or any companion. The game's dialogue only goes off your main character. So I'd rather spend points on skills for my main character to open those dialogue options, not on skills that don't. Which is why I would give those skills like mechanics to a NPC rogue. It also doesn't get around the fact that my BB Priest skills are ALL worthless now in my current party. Every other character has higher points in EVERY skill than the BB Priest.

Never really looked at skills before but now that I'm going over it, there is a lot of doubling up which makes it a pointless exercise in some cases. If you're not taking a Rogue, the starting companions are: BB Rogue has the highest in Stealth - 5 and Mechanics - 6 BB Fighter has the highest Athletics - 6 BB Priest has the highest Survival - 3 BB Wizard has the highest Lore - 8 I've picked my class as the Cipher and pumped Lore (7) which makes the BB Wizard nearly obsolete. When I do level up my Cipher, it will make the BB Wizard skill obsolete. I've bought a Druid from the inn and what do I pump? Survival? Okay, Druid now has survival (5) which makes the Priest's survival skill obsolete. There are going to be companions that have doubled up and I'll be allocating points to characters (like the priest) knowing another companion (druid) has a higher points total in that skill.

First impressions in character creation is Race and Culture play an important part even more now with min-maxing your attributes. I can see some races and cultures I wouldn't touch if I was taking out a specific class.

Read the patch notes already. Dump stats here we come.

I was thinking of doing a Terminator party on my next playthrough but will be going with Predator instead. Dutch, Mac, Blaine and Billy.