Doppelschwert

I think the rule is this: The bonus of both your hand slots stack with the highest buff of the rest of your equipment. The reasoning is that the buffs on weapons/shields are used to distinguish them and if some of them could be overridden by the rest of your equipment, that would make that choice of weapon/shield strictly worse than other weapons/shields where you can't have the additional effect on equipment. For example, you can have deflection (hatchet) on rings and cloaks, but you can't have 'Best of Slash/Pierce' (Sword) on equipment other than weapons, so making weapons suppress their boni would make the hatchet inferior to the sword in terms of special abilities (disregarding attack speed and damage). Therefore weapons stack with equipment to maintain the tradeoffs associated with them.

Can't you host a patch in the backer portal for the gog users as well? If I was to install the game from the cd that will hopefully arrive at some point, there needs to be a way to patch that game up anyway since I could use all my keys on steam. This is rather dissappointing. I'd like to express my gratitude and stuff, but since I'm locked out of the patched game for another 3-4 days of my holiday that's kind of hard to do.

So, what's with the gog version? <_<

Hey guys, great job on the game! My issues are the following: 1) When you equip a weapon in the off-hand, the character screen shows you as dual wielding your fist as main-weapon and the weapon as second weapon. This makes sense, since your fist can be used as a weapon (especially if you play a monk) and when you want to get the bonus of one-handed fighting style, you can just equip it in the main-hand to get that properly to work in the first place, so there is not even ambiguity. In fact, I think this is the best next thing since the invention of sliced bread and supercool, since you can play a character that fights with a sword while he occasionally punches the enemy in the face (never seen this before!). However, much to my dismay and as far as I can see, the displayed dual wielding doesn't carry over to combat, where you will just use the weapon in your off-hand. I'm not even sure if you get the proper one-handed fighting bonus in that case. So my plea would be to make this work in an upcoming patch, as that would be really awesome and how you would expect it to work. 2) The next thing is that the enhancement 'Bash' on a shield is treated as an activated ability as far as the autopause is concerned, resulting in a permanent pausing during combat while using it. Would it be possible to remove it from the autopause list? If possible, I'd also like to have some clarification about game mechanics concerning bash (although this is probably the wrong place to ask): Is having a shield with bash treated as dual wielding? 3) On a custom made character of mine the weapon talent that gives a bonus to hunting bows doesn't seem to work since there is no change in the accuracy on equipping/deequipping the bow. I don't think the issues are related to my hardware, but feel free to demand additional files if there is some need for them. Keep on the great work and enjoy a happy eastern weekend! I'm grateful for you putting a lot of work into fixing the bugs that arise.

Equipping the shield should result in it being used as an off-hand weapon by bashing it against enemies. The confusing part is that with regards to auto pause this effect is considered as an ability (which pauses therefore way too frequently if you have pause on ability usage). Also, nobody seems to know whether equiping this shield results in the fighting stance being considered as weapon/shield or two-weapons or both with regards to talents. Weapon/shield can be decided by seeing if the weapon/shield talent applies, but the two-weapons talent increases attack speed which is not shown numerically in the character sheet. I also think this is not technical support but gameplay.

Math is serious business. ...so that is how it feels to quote someone out of context? Anyway, let's see what they've got in store in 2 days.

Was there some social media news from one of the devs recently or what do you mean by 'now' ?

It raises an interesting point however, since additive enchantments shift the ratio of DR/slowdown in a way that lighter armors become more attractive. Since you can add the same value to each armor, the slowdown of the armor only relates to the actual difference between armor types. Glancing at the Wiki it seems like 1DT equals roughly 5% slowdown. I'd argue that this system scales in a way that it's better to use lighter armor once the additive bonuses get higher, as the slowdown gives you only an marginal increase in overall DR. I'm sure they'll get back to the armors in a patch anyway. I think a nice way to boost the medium armor would be to arrange the armors on a triangular shape whose vertices consist of 'speed', 'DR' and 'saves', such that there is a tradeoff between the three stats. Would create more situations for armor to shine, although min/maxing will still be applicable. But that's a given.

First, consider these quotes: Mostly in that it's more limited, which might make it worth scaling the penalty reduction from Con faster. I'm not sure I see a problem with that redundancy either way, though. That's true. While deflection is on two attributes, I consider the reduction on recovery time to be just inferior to the bonus of dex, as the bonus of dex already implies a reduction of recovery time. The bonus would have to be huge to be worth it and at the same time trivialize your choice to disregard any inferior armor. Why not simply make a talent for it? It's more clean, easier to balance and can be made to give more interesting specializations in armor. Well, conceptually, its about being tough enough and conditioned for the armor. The change to the lower DR armors is to remove the penalty for even thinking about armor, which I find pretty strange. If you want to encourage a variety of strategies and builds, you don't put a penalty on the minimums. As to the difference with dex- quite a bit. Dex modifies the action animation, while the armor penalty affects the recovery animation. Totally different timers. As for the armor type issue. Eh. Part of it is presumably 'realism,' but what it mostly comes down to is exploiting the inventory system, switching armors out that best fit the enemies you've just spotted. Aside from gaming the system, I don't see a lot of benefit. I interpret the post from josh to mean that dex affects the total time, so in particular recovery animation as well. Unless con far outweights dex in terms of time reduction, why would i take con over dex? And if it outweights it, wouldn't it trivialize armor usage in the first place? Since you can't change armor during fights, you still have to settle for one armor at any given battle. If having medium armor shine in certain situations because you get a high DR against a relevant damage type while taking less slowdown compared to heavy armor, then the middleground is not useless. If that implies that this system leads to exploition, then you will not be able to have meaningful choices at all, because you can always minmax every encounter if you just reload and prepare everything perfectly. Of course there will always be a best choice, but the problem should be that it is not easy to be able to identify it.

How is a reduction on recovery time on con conceptually different from an increase in action speed from dex, which is already in the game? Action speed scales with all actions independent of armor while the proposed recovery time on con is conditioned on equipment, which no other stat is? Sounds kind of strange to me. I do think however that using talents in order to decrease the slow down of armor and enhance them would be a good idea. Also, I'm confused because no one seems to mention that currently some armor types already give different numbers of DR to different kind of damage types, thus separating them conceptually?

When creating a character recently, the tooltip of intelligence showed me that my will safe would increase by only +1 per point of intelligence, while all the other stats properly displayed a bonus of +2 per point. The value displayed in the charsheet in the game seemed to be actually +2 per point of intelligence.

Yeah, this. Now that I know I get the stuff digitally at release, the only issue is the poll. The world won't be coming to an end because of it, but it's a strange aftertaste.

If that was the case why didn't you say so in the update regarding the poll? Instead you made it sound like everyone would get their copies before launch day. I'm quite sure the poll would've turned out different. I like you guys and the games you did but even I'm a bit upset now... I have to say, that went over my head as well. Given this information, I would've voted for the second option in the poll as well - we can hardly make any informed choices when we are uninformed. Prior to this thread i was acting under the assumption that stuff would be manufactured in europe for the european backers instead of shipped to paradox. Nevertheless, what is done is done. Judging from the latest backer beta I'm really happy with how the game turned out, which is ultimately way more important to me. Given that we can access the physical content digitally via the backer portal also alleviates a lot of the issues I had with this announcement. Still, I hope it's valuable feedback for you guys in the future.

They mentioned in the update and thread regarding that poll that there would always be a distinct delay between US shipments and international shipments. This was option #2 in the update about the poll: Now, I don't know the details, but it sounds like there are two things at play, here. 1) For reasons unknown (but probably actual reasons, since I don't see Obsidian being merely lazy/spiteful people who hate anyone but U.S. dwellers), getting everything together for a given person's reward and shipping it all the way to them internationally seems to take possibly 1-2 weeks longer than the exact same shipment within the U.S. 2) Finalizing the game disc for other language versions takes longer. So, it seems as though international folk will still be getting their physical goods minus the game disc, itself, several weeks earlier than the game disc. But, overall, anything shipped outside the U.S. will be slower to arrive than the same thing shipped inside the U.S. I get that that's crappy, but maybe we should learn the reasons before we imply Obsidian's efforts are lacking. Maybe it's a Paradox/publishing thing? Maybe all the stuff's slightly different for various regions of the world? I dunno. I'd like to know, but I currently do not. It's not true at all that they announced there would always be delays. They announced there would be an delay for the second option, but they've chosen the first option if you remember correctly. The whole point of the first option was to get the physical goods to people in time without having to worry about the game being leaked or sending an unfinished/unpatched version. As you see, this won't be the case, but at the same time, we won't get the benefits from the second option, which was a complete, sealed collectors edition. So the US gets the benefit of option 1 while europe gets nothing. And we paid extra for shipping, had to wait several hours for each release of the backer beta because it was released in the middle of the night for us. The point is, I'm not really mad at obsidian because there are obvious reasons behind all of this for which I don't blame anyone, I totally understand them. However, the feeling of being dissappointed stays nethertheless, because now every average joe from the US who's not even a backer is in a better situation compared to me following the project since the kickstarter campaign. The infuriating part is that you have to keep up with this stuff in europe all the time, like shifted release dates and other inconveniences, but if it's reversed once in a blue moon for something, I always feel like there is a ****storm of entitlement going off in the US, so they don't even appreciate their situation for the most part. If I wanted to put the blame on anyone it would be paradox because they are supposed to handle the distribution. I'm sure there could've been a more riskless way to organize the shipping, especially since the game discs are not included. Like manufacturing stuff in europe and so on. I guess it boils down to being more cost effective by organizing everything in the US, but since I paid extra for shipping, that's really a let down.

It is looking like everything will be shipped pretty close to release day for folks in the U.S.. International deliveries may be a couple of weeks after release, unfortunately. Once we receive confirmation of delivery from Paradox we will let you guys know. That is really dissappointing if it turns out this way. What's the point of having a poll about when to ship the game disks when it doesn't matter for a lot of people in the end? Paradox shouldn't treat europe like second class citizens, escpecially when we backed a good amount of the total money. They might as well ship the disk with the other stuff in that case. Not only will i have to wait because there is no preload on gog compared to steam, I also don't get my stuff in a timely manner? It's certainly not adding to the hype I was enjoying the last couple days.

If you're interested in romance, maybe you should consider playing other games instead? This game for example has proven to be essential for the golden era of romance in video games. I wonder what bruce thinks about it, by the way.

It's an option you decide on at the beginnung of the game. Maybe you can change it during the game, but I guess not. If its activated, the character permanently dies when you hit 0 health. There is no ressurection, however, so the character is permanently lost that way. It's the same what happens when you are maimed and reach 0 health when its not actived. There is no ressurection in this game, but there are abilities that can get unconscious allies (0 endurance) get back up during combat.

http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Maimed You're welcome.

To me, this debate is still kind of strange. Consider it from a point of view from DnD 3.X. If you go to the level range of 1-20, you get 6 talents. DnD Weapon focus in PoE terms gives +5 accuracy to one type of weapon. One single type. A lot of people still pick weapon focus if they play a melee class and I've never see someone complain about that. In a possible sequel that raises the level cap in PoE to 20, you will get 10 talents by that time. If you pick weapon focus here, you get +6 accuracy to several types of weapons. The weapon focus in PoE is already cheaper, more diverse, more powerful by its numerical value and even more valuable because the attack resolution places a greater focus on accuracy. From the DnD viewpoint, you can consider the talent in PoE as choosing a single weapon, getting the corresponding talent and having the other weapons as bonus candy for your convenience. Arguing that you want to customize these sets yourself to eliminate that little strategic trade off they still have seems kind of munchkin-y to me. On the other hand, lets crunch numbers. When I didn't miscount, there are 28 different types of weapons in PoE. Lets say we are modest and want to have at least one talent for each combination of two weapons. Thats 28*27/2 = 378 combinations. Let's be optimistic and claim that we can partition them in a way such that each weapon focus, that is, each combination of 5 weapons, produce new pairs, that is, each pair of two weapons is in exactly one weapon focus talent and not in multiple. Then a single talent can cover 5*4/2 = 10 combinations, so you'd need at least 38 talents. So unless you go overboard you will always be able to come up with a fun character concept that resolves around 2 weapons and can't get covered by premade talents. Don't get me started on combinations of more then 2 weapons, it's way higher. So if you want to cover every combination, it boils down to one of this: - no-brain munchkin selection - way too many talents

Agreed. People should be upset if I accept a quest but then proceed to just put it off. That questline should subsequently be dead (for whatever reasons, NPC doesn't trust me anymore, the bandits have moved to another location, what-have-you) and archived away into a section of my journal. I would love for there to be consequences for not completing quests in a timely manner. As already mentioned, this just promotes metagaming to load a save where you haven't accepted the quest yet if you are not able to tackle it immediately. It's especially bad in a nonlinear rpg where you might pick up new quests with time limit while trying to solve another one with limited time, as this may produce situations where you can't solve both of them anymore, even when playing optimally. If you want to have consequences like this it's easier to just model them inside a quest. A quest may have several objectives in parallel and may give you hints in which order to do them for the best result, and if you do them in the wrong order, it plays out different. This rewards proper prioritizing and decision making instead of frantically rushing through the games content. Personally, I have more than enough time limits in real life. Don't see how additional stress will make my gaming more fun.

What's the standing of the natural sciences (mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology) compared to animancy in the world of PoE? Is there some faction that is all about gathering knowledge like the one in las vegas i don't remember the name of? Which kind of people are educated? ... Can i make a mathematician that fits into the setting? Also, what about dinosaurs?

I think it was an explicit design goal that these talents give you access to approximately one weapon for each type of damage and each distance so that you have the option to always pick a weapon that you are proficient with and is effective in each possible combat scenario. They wanted to evade the problem of the IE games that you pick a weapon focus for that one ultimate weapon at the end of the game and disregard the other stuff until then because that type of item may be rare. You also can't choose talents at lvl 1 so that you don't have to take these talents blindly and experiment with some weapons beforehand. That said, I can understand your complaints, but I'm not so sure how more of these talents can do more than alleviate the problem. You'll always be able to come up with a subset of weapons that is not covered as long as you leave it at an reasonable amount of talents. Look at it that way - it's meant to be a strategic choice for your gear, as just choosing everything you want with a single talent is a no-brainer. Still, I see the benefit of having more choice from a roleplaying point of view. I'd be all up for a sword exclusive guy, but I can live with the way it is.

I wonder why bruce did not already chime in to celebrate? Bah, engaging in the "services" of a prostitute does not constitute a romance. I don't think bruce would disregard any opportunity to shag someone ingame. So he's dead now? Who will carry on the good fight for romance, then? And how often do we have to drop his name in this thread before he actually answers? Maybe some questions to this in the next episode of this thread! *high five* ... I guess I should feel about myself now, but since you're fighting the good fight for bad puns you should get some support from time to time. By the way, what's the difference between romance and puns? One of them is in PoE, the other is not.

Agree. Now it'as come to my understanding that what annoys people with this is more the fact that uncounscious characters/foes can't be furthermore targeted during the fight than the fact they can be knocked down 'til the end of the fight when they get back up. But then again, that's a matter of game balance. When you engage in a fight against 5 patibulaire dudes and manage to knock one of 'em down. If you're given the possibility to keep on hitting 'em to "actually kill 'em"... would you seriously do it ? No, obviously you'll focus on the others since there's no point in wasting time and energy on 'em. Considering this, it wouldn't be fair that enemies keep on hitting your fallen mates for the sake of killing em since that doesn't affect the fight for them in a good way, worst case scenario they lose time and energy for nothing, best case scenario they manage to actually kill your mate, but still lose the fight due to not giving a F about the rest of the crew. I like the system as it is. Although i agree that the mechanic is fine as it is, there is some oversight in your argument. It does indeed not make sense to go after unconscious characters while you are attacked by living ones, however, you still would expect attacks with AoE to hit the people lying on the floor.