quechn1tlan

1.05, had two ciphers in my party, one with a blunderbuss another one with an arquebus. Focus gain was roughly the same, Cipher with a blunderbuss was ahead in damage overall, but that was mostly due to it being my PC with better stats. Sometimes on the PC used a pistol since it utilizes the same weapon focus as blunderbuss, still was quite similar. So, quite honestly it's a preference thing. Blunderbuss trades some range for looking cooler, so there's where my choice lies. Disclaimer - this was on hard, potd experience may vary.

Achievements are a plight that came from the need to pad the console games that otherwise lacked in meaningful content. Off with them altogether, I say.

And by moon-sized you mean a slight, insignificant, absolutely explainable inconsistency in the most minor of inconsequential sidequests? You do know the moon is not that little thing in the sky and is not actually smaller than your thumb?

Ooh, this is really bad. It means summoning items are that way too. And this bug was the most annoying one during my playthrough. Almost broke the game completely, since if I reloaded in a location with enemies they would aggro on the summon and leave party in a perpetual state of combat.

Why are you people replying in here like it's a real thread? OP is a known troll with an agenda. Don't buy into this bull****. Just post pictures of obvious trolls, gr8 b8 m8's, and n/10's. That is all that is required here.

No cheese, right.

Oh, I've got one better for you. During a fight i used a charm spell that turned some of the enemies friendly for me, but not for the hirelings, apparently. They took it really personally, so much that they attacked me instead. Naturally I killed them for their insubordination. But even that was not enough, since afterwards when I would visit the stronghold grounds their ghosts would try to enact their revenge on me, as in I would suddenly go into combat and get a message that I was attacked by something-something while there was nothing there.

Thanks.

So, I've finished the game already but on my playthrough there was an astounding number of issues that were accumulating as I went, ultimately making reloading after quitting the game quite hazardous. So, third act I pretty much rushed with doing couple of Elms side quests, a single god task(honestly, it never occurred to me that you could do multiple), and the Raedric Hold return. What I'm wondering - at some point an NPC told me that the riots in Defiance Bay ceased and you could return there. My desire to finish the game before it broke completely, as well as general dislike for large cities in RPGs made me never return there. So I was wondering, for subsequent playthroughs, is there something that is worth coming back to in Act 3? Like new quests, storylines, and developments. Or is it just the means to let you collect bounties and get access to the traders there?

On. The default was on, so it's on. If it'd be off, it'd be off. I don't think there's a function I care less about in this game.

The Endless Paths are a Watcher's Keep/Durlag's Tower successor, and those had bosses stronger than the final bosses of their respective games. Optional bonus dungeon, super boss, etc. This is not some unique JRPG thing. Only in BG1/2 those were simply difficult encounters that I beat by preparation and several tries. You know, run in, get wiped, adjust tactics, try again. Bosses there are not unbeatable when you get to them. If you could do those dungeons - chances are you're alright with their bosses. And that, apart from the general lack of rules or clarity, is what really ruins the Dragon fight.

What I don't like about that dragon is that they pulled a Final Fantasy and included a boss that stands outside of the game's balance. Nothing you face, especially at about lvl 9 when you usually get to the dragon comes close to it. Heck, the final fight is immensely easier. This is wrong. You want to give a challenge - make it a natural progression of challenge and not just throw in a single encounter that comes out of nowhere, hits you over the head and calls into question every build choice you've made throughout the game. Also, making players return to the dragon, later after spending three hours, trying to win an unwinnable fight only to realize that it's quite impossible with a lvl 9 party with lvl-appropriate gear, sours the entire playthrough. On top of inflated stats, the fight IS unfair with unavoidable instawipes if the RNG gods are not on your side that day, plus, just as stated above the model is super-nebulous. So your best option is to cheese the thing by whichever method you find to your liking even when you have that leveled-up group.(By the way what is this about priest traps? I've heard it multiple times but never in detail. There's one priest trap that does damage IIRC, and you can place like 4 or 5 of them per rest, no?) So, yeah, that fight should really get looked at. It's poorly designed in a multitude of ways.

As other points were pretty much explained, my understanding of "1" was that a) You didn't survive biawac, you hid from it in the ruins, in other words, avoided it. 2) machine I'm not so sure about it, mayhaps it saw you as one of its operators. It didn't kill Thaos either. So this is my theory on what happened there.

Tier 1 Durance. A crazy, tormented old man, one of my favourite archetypes, who is exceptionally well written and closely interconnected with the main story. A lot can be said about Durance, but what is for sure it's that he's a love/hate type character. And for me, he is indeed one of the best companions in RPGs ever. Also, that scream. Eder. Quite possibly the only blond man in gaming, or even the world who you don't want to immediately punch. He's that everyman with some dark secret that every RPG has, but he's so exceptionally well done and likeable, that he gets my Tier 1, regardless of his tired old concept. Also, animals. Tier 2 Aloth. Without spoiling anything, he's the only character of his type who, after the big reveal of his reasonings, I didn't kill and/or sent away as far as possible. Also, his second personality is nice. Accents quite often do it for me in the endearing department. Grieving Mother. The chimes instead of voice response when you click on her was a touch of genius. I'm not putting her in Tier 1, mostly because she wasn't with me for too long. She joined the party late and then, who knew she would ditch me when I sacrificed that barbarian baby. A mystery for another playthrough. But from what little I've seen it all was super compelling. Kana. A scholar, a bard, and an adventurer. A kind giant who pursues knowledge instead of fame or wealth. I like this idea. Tier 3 Sagani. I really liked her voice. And her fox. And her background. I'm not even penalizing her for being a female dwarf(we all know those don't exist or if they do, the very least she could do was have a beard) It's just her quest seemed far-fetched and ultimately had no resolution. I don't quite get it why she was doing what she was doing and what she hoped to accomplish. Pallegina. Ok, first of all, can we not have a Paladin whose name is basically so similar to her class that in my memory she remains exclusively as Paladin Bird-Lady? I liked the idea of an Italian(Venetian? You know what I mean.) Paladin, a piece of lore from parts of the world not explored in the game. But her premise seemed a bit obvious, and just as with Sagani - had no real resolution. She angsted all throughout the game but in the end after an angry phrase or two she returned to her old self as if nothing happened, with nothing really explained or surmised. Tier 4 Hiravias. An Orlan, which is a hobbit, or a gnome, which is an auto-pass for me already. But on top of that, he tries to be funny, but in my opinion fails miserably, coming off as repulsive and creepy as hell instead. The only companion in this game, I actually didn't like at all.

Have you enchanted the door recently? If so - for me, custom enchantment broke the bash on it. A bug from before the patch.

You have a bug, I think. As a Godlike it gave me a line about barely fitting the hood and allowed to enter peacefully.

Arbalest is good and all, but what about Mind Blades comparison from kind Steam people?

Ok, I know there are rules now about reporting issues, but I'm writing this after finishing the game and because I didn't see this very important issue addressed in the changelog. Hopefully I'm not just missing that one line. Here goes, summoning items(not wizards summoning staves), like the ones summoning Animats, Beetles, and so on have a chance to "break" and for some reason start summoning their summons on their own, out of combat without player's desire or consent. These summons will be added to the party as permanent members from that point on. If you leave the item equipped, those summons with random intervals will keep appearing. Unequiping them seemingly had no effect. Killing those summons through console didn't work. The only thing that helped was to shelve the companion who had the item when it all started. Even then, spectral outlines of those summons would appear in random areas, even though they weren't in my party anymore, and weren't an actual unit on a map, just a grey figure. Which was only annoying, until the point when it turned out that those spectres, if they spawn in a map near a cluster of enemies would aggro those enemies putting your party in never-ending combat. The only workaround I found was to save only in areas where there were no enemies to be found. As a side note - that endless combat thing happened only upon loading the game, and not just transiting from one area to another, while those figures themselves would appear whenever and wherever they pleased. If this is a known issue already, my apologies, but I just never saw it mentioned.

Not to create another thread, I had a somewhat similar issue, when enchanting items with unique pre-placed enchants, like the Door shield, unique enchantments on them disappeared and only those I put there myself left. The mentioned shield, for example, lost its bash ability.

People are giving nice ideas. What I'd like to add - don't make confused enemies' targeting circles green. It's needlessly annoying to A-click them after your team loses aggro and auto-runs in whichever direction because the enemy suddenly became stupid. With charm - I get it, but confusion seems to confuse your team more than it does the enemy.

Can you elaborate? Why is the damage so high? Am I a dumb for not knowing something about petrification? I thought it just made it easier to hit the target, not gave it negative damage resistances.

Taking a note from Minsc's book and adapting it to the setting my strategy was basically guns for everyone. Before some of my companions bugged out and I had to improvise, only Eder didn't have a gun of some sort, while my cipher PC was 50\50 on a gun\sword depending on the width of the bottleneck I could get enemies into. Kana, Aloth, Durance, and Mother went in guns blazing. With the gunner song it was basically a massacre. As far as I'm concerned there's no reason not to use guns. When he got his hands on his first fine pistol, Aloth forgot all about flimsy wands and became an arcane gunslinger and not regretted it for a moment.

Are you kidding me? He had been the most fun of them all! Especially when you quest with him in Northweald and do Sagani's quest he was great. And in main quest where you ask for God's help he had the best comments. Hell, even during very last main quest he was pretty cool. Hated his guts from the moment he appeared. Maybe because he had that crazy cannibal vibe to him, maybe cause he was Orlan(can't stand anything even remotely hobbit/gnome-like in RPGs, sort of how MCA is with elves). He just seemed creepy as hell to the point of being revolting and after I managed to find another companion to fill that space I delegated him to being a Stronghold guard and never even considered taking him along again. Apparently it's an either or type situation, where liking Durance and the Druid(can't even remember his name) are mutually exclusive.

Eder commented on Sagani's fox, some barbarian's tiger(whatever they called them) and on my pet Black Cat. His animal comments are really great. On the topic of Durance, I think I liked him the most out of all companions. Him being very closely tied into the overarching story also helped. You just can't beat an insane angry old man who calls everybody a whore and gives 0 ****s about anything after all he's been through. In general, I found companions to be really well designed, written and acted. The only one I though was annoying and perhaps lacking - was that weird druid.

I really dislike so many mechanics in this game, the bugs don't help either. However I still find it engaging and interesting to play. Possibly it's because shortly after development started and the "Sawyering" of the game was announced I read it all and fully assumed the game would turn out as complete and utter garbage. I distanced myself from all further info and waited patiently till release. Now it is released, and I find myself annoyed by all the streamlining much less than I expected to. No battle experience? Classes that feel super similar with just a handful of feats being unique to classes, doubled by the fact that everyone can use anything? Unlimited inventory? Idiotic resting system where they made a giant fuss about how offended they were by people resting in IE games and then made a system where you have extremely limited supplies but if you don't give your casters Athletics they get fatigued three fights in, making you go back to town? Very few in-world skill checks with every skill other than mechanics, and mechanics so prevalent that you have to crab-walk everywhere with the double speed on because there are secrets everywhere? This list can go on and on and I'm not even touching the world or the story. Thing is - I expected it to grate me much more than it does. However, there's still a number of things that I do like. And the game is generally enjoyable to play. Provided you beforehand abandon the thought that it is a successor to IE games, and look at it with 0 expectations of anything good. It's a decent RPG. I like decent RPGs. They can't all be masterpieces with nigh unlimited customization that will be played 10-15 years later and remain a constant occupant of so many hard drives. What Josh Sawyer can't seem to grasp is that imballance was ultimately what made those old games so compelling and replayable. Be it by giving you enough options to write a PhD on min-maxing it, or playing a suboptimal character and triumphing over adversity. But I digress. He has his tenets of game design, I have my issues with them. At the end of the day - he's the professional here and despite my problems with it, I find Pillars enjoyable. Still wish it was better, though.