Keyrock

I guess the answer is no, since I'm not even sure what that means? Was this in a user created module? I'm 25+ hours in and I haven't had a single battle last longer than a minute, maybe a minute 10 seconds. The campaign is filled to the brim with filler battles against trash mobs, just like Pillars, but at least they go by super quick for me, usually about 20 seconds, so I don't find them tedious because I can just control one character while the rest are on auto-pilot and blow through the battle right quick. As for the damage, it does seem like attacks hit like a wet newspaper. The damage numbers seem fine, I guess enemies just have insane amounts of hit points. Still, I mostly control and I get a kick out of watching her go machinegun style with her bow and seeing the enemies health bar go down relatively quickly by a rapid succession of chip damage. Death by a thousand papercuts, I guess.

Mmm, since technically Persona games are SMT games and given that most of the SMT series proper have their own unique worlds/setups, I'm not that worried that GENEI IBUN ROKU #FE also has its own unique setup that's as much Persona as it is SMT as it is Fire Emblem. Yes and no... sort of. The relationship between SMT and Persona is a bit weird, I'm not sure I completely understand it myself. The original Persona game was known as Shin Megami Tensei: Persona in the west, they added the SMT so that it would be recognizable and sell better, in Japan it was known simply as Persona. As the Persona series grew in popularity, it actually became more popular than SMT and they dropped the pretense of calling it SMT in the west. If I remember correctly, Persona was a spin-off of a game called Shin Megami Tensei If, which itself was a spin-off of Shin Megami Tensei. So, I guess the easiest way to look at it is that Persona is a spin-off of a spin-off (second cousin?) of SMT. Anyway, the two series share no story connection, though they do share some mechanical similarities. Core SMT games tend to be significantly darker than Persona and tend to delve into angels and demons and religious ideologies.

Woohoo, they reached 60 backer missions completed, the Michael A. Stackpole novellas are now instead going to be a full length novel. In a related story, I just jumped up to the $50 tier.

It's a Bethesda game, we've been through this before, many times. The game will come out with terrible looking character models, be buggy, and have a dull world full of cardboard cutout people. The journos will give them a free pass on all the game's issues. Then a bunch of mods will come out that fix most of the problems, make the game look 5X better, and make it tons of fun to **** around in. Then everyone will sing the praises of how great a developer Bethesda is and they'll win all the awards. We go through the same cycle every time they release a game.

Don't ever change Japan. I am slightly disappointed that this looks a lot more like Persona than it does SMT, I have nothing against Persona, I just like SMT better, but it's still a game I'm excited to get my hands on... even after inevitably NoA censors the bejesus out of it. *sigh*

Whaaaaaa? One of the SJW sociopaths (just this one, not accusing anyone else) outing herself in manipulating the media to make herself look like a victim, almost as if some of the things some of us suggested here (and in many other places) are true about them being professional victims is true? Well, I don't; it couldn't possibly be true. I must be a mysoginist ****lord to even consider such a thing.

I don't even bother with the "gift email" I just redeem the key and copy & paste it to whom I'm gifting it to. I haven't heard complaints, so I'm assuming it worked.

Greg Mother****ing Hardy! He may be a **** human being, but he's one heck of a football player. That was an amazing interception. The way this season has gone, I need something, anything, to cheer about, even if they don't win this game. As an aside, I didn't watch Giants/Saints earlier in the day because I was watching DOTA 2 on Twitch, but what in the world happened in that game? Did both defenses just not show up for the game? Edit: Woo, blocked FG! Edit 2: And the Cowboys lose, no surprise, but at least I had something to cheer for. Crazy as it may be, not that I have any delusions of the Cowboys winning the division, but how is it that they have gone 0-5 since Romo went down and are only 2 games down in the NFC East? How is that possible? As another aside, though no telling if it would have impacted the final score, NFL officials ****ed the Cowboys over late in the 2nd quarter when Seattle called a timeout, then had 12 men on the field after the timeout (how is that even possible?) and tried to call another timeout and the officials inexplicably (wrongly) called the play dead and announced that Seattle couldn't call another timeout (you can't call 2 in a row) instead of (rightfully) letting the play go on and ignoring the timeout call and letting Dallas snap the ball for a 12 men on the field penalty that would have given Dallas a 1st down and a chance for a TD instead of a FG (potential [no gaurantee the Cowboys score the TD from about the 12, where they would have had it had the play been called correctly] difference in score due to blatant referee error - 4 points. Difference in final score - 1 point. Just sayin').

I can't help it if we're the only ones willing to put in the hard work of pressing F12, dragging and dropping a picture to imgur, then copy & pasting the BBC code to here. The rest of the forum should be ashamed, lazy bastards.

The clipping on the cloak of my dwarf is understandable, to a degree, because dwarves are so insanely more stocky than any other race and they're a player race so there are a thousand different armor and cloak combinations (for the record, I've only had clipping with this one specific armor). The clipping on the succubus is unforgivable, as it's a unique model without multiple armor/clothing pieces she can wear. There may have been more clipping, but the clipping with that armor and cloak on my dwarf cleric and the clipping on the succubus are the only examples I've noticed in the game so far (coincidentally captured both in one screenshot).

A succubus, my favorite kind of demon, even if she is a little overdressed for my liking.

Wild - I have a soft spot for giant sexy snake ladies.

Yudkowsky is a narcissist who is the current prime candidate to become GLaDOS.

Well, the plan for Halloween was to play a bunch of Fatal Frame 5 and Alien: Isolation. I wound up playing about 20 minutes of Alien: Isolation and 3+ hours of Sword Coast Legends. So much for that plan. At least I played SOMA earlier this month to fill my spooky quota for October.

^ With Platinum developing the game you know the combat is going to be awesome. That makes now 2 games that give me legit PS4 envy.

Delayed 2 weeks

Really, practicality is your only concern with this? You see nothing morally wrong with renouncing fairness, espousing close-mindedness and thought control, and rationalizing the dehumanizing of and assholishness towards those not deemed "on your side"? I'm with you on this Ineth. What Arthur Chu was preaching in that post was pure extremism. He was suggesting that you need to throw yourself into a cause headlong, refuse to listen to any counterarguments, there is no neutrality, only allies and enemies, and to pursue the cause by any means necessary (essentially The Ends Justify the Means). That's zealotry, pure and simple. Zealotry is never the answer, it always does exponentially more harm than it does good.

Strangely enough, I'm not disliking the story, even though it is what my English teach in high school would call "American Cheese", that is, something that's very plain, not bad, but completely devoid of any bite, any spice, any strong taste. Then again, I'm one of the few weird people that enjoyed the NWN 1 OC, and that was also very much American Cheese. Mechanically, I get the desire of people for this to be closer to actual D&D rules, given that this is labeled as a D&D game. I, personally, don't share that desire. I think the skill trees, as they are now, are perfectly fine, good even. The biggest problem with the game's mechanics, in my opinion, is that the cooldowns are simply too long. In the game's current state, there are only a few abilities you'll be able to use even just twice during a typical battle. I believe there is a very simple fix. In my opinion, a cooldown reduction, across the board, of 30%, 35%, maybe 40%, would pretty much completely solve the game's mechanical problems. With a reduction in that range, the really powerful abilities with current cooldowns of around 2 minutes would go down to somewhere in the 1 minute and 15 second range, which would still be only be usable only once per battle, as it should (I don't think I've had a single battle last more than a minute yet, most don't last even 30 seconds). However, the abilities that currently have cooldowns of 25 to 30 seconds would have cooldowns of around 15 to 20 seconds, allowing you to use them twice during typical battles and three times during long battles. Abilities that currently have cooldowns in the 40 second range would go down to the 25 to 30 second range, meaning you'd only get to use them once in short battles and you'd get to use them twice in longer battles. With items that decrease cooldowns you could push the cooldowns of the short cooldown abilities down to the 10 to 12 second range and use them 2 or 3 times in typical battles and 4, maybe even 5, times during long battles, and the medium cooldown abilities down to around 20 seconds, allowing you to use them twice during short battles and 3 times during longer battles, giving you a lot more to do during combat.

If you're going to live in the catacombs you might as well spruce up the place with some nice rugs and paintings.

I'm currently making my escape from a chapterhouse. My team is carrying so much loot that everyone is encumbered and moving at a snail's pace. I really should just drop some stuff, but I'm too greedy, I want to sell it all. I won't even drop the mundane stuff.

A patch came down the pipeline with an update. Here's what's in the patch and what's planned for the next few patches: I bolded and colored the parts that are of most importance to me. Branching dialogues are pretty much a prerequisite for doing any story-driven adventure that's not completely linear and disabling level scaling, well, no explanation needed for that.

Well, all the goals I care about have been met. I don't particularly care whether or not they make the PvP goal (they will, easily). That in-engine video loods pretty sweet, even if it is only a static scene showing off lighting and stuff.

I think so. It doesn't change the fact that they gave us the runaround for a year and a half (and counting) and that they prioritized console versions (a smart decision from a purely business standpoint) over fulfilling their belated Kickstarter duties. Off topic: I bought Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition for the PS4 yesterday. Thanks for taunting me. Real classy.

Over 20 hours in and I'm still eager to keep playing, which is a good sign. The story is still bog standard, though. You can spec you characters in a way where you take a whole bunch of different active abilities, rather than taking a few and increasing them to make them more powerful to give you more things to do during a battle, plus there are similar abilities that are weaker but have lower cooldowns. Also, there are items that reduce cooldowns, if you use those, especially if you stack a couple of these on 1 character, you can use some abilities multiple times during a battle. With that said, I do agree that this game could benefit from shorter cooldowns. I think a reduction of around 30% across the board would make for more engaging combat. Still, I'm enjoying the combat, probably because I don't have to hold everybody's hand through it all the time, making battles exponentially less tedious. My only complaint with the companion AI so far is Jarhild using Unyielding Avalanche (I spec'd her into a 2-hander wielder) during easy fights. It feels like such a waste using an awesome 120 second cooldown ability when fighting a single archer. Anyway, I guess I'm probably about halfway through the game now. Hopefully I can finish it before Hard West comes out, but I won't go nuts if I don't.