AndreaColombo

3.04 is out on GoG.

Does it matter if achievements are enabled or not? If not, I'll drop one when I'm home from work if no one else does in the meanwhile.

I agree the bug is a problem if confirmed on saves other than the OP's, and I hope there will be a fix. What I take issue with is people with access to the beta doing no testing at all, then coming here and bashing the devs because a bug was found. It's a matter of attitude, rather than of content.

Interesting to see such vocal complaints. As GoG have not released the patch yet and you guys seem to have it, it ensues you're on Steam--the one platform on which beta patches are made available. In case you missed the memo, the purpose of beta patches is precisely for you to report this kind of bugs ahead of the patch's release, so we don't end up with a broken game. Yet I don't recall seeing any of you around during the beta patch, which lasted for about one month during which there was a lot of back and forth communication with the devs. Ironic that you'd come around now to complain. 3.04 is the last patch; there likely won't be others. 3.03 was already supposed to be the last and it was a kindness on Obsidian's part to spend additional resources on a game whose development cycle's already over to please those few fans who stuck on the boards. I hope they'll release a hot fix but I doubt being bashed for releasing one more patch is going to make them particularly willing.

I experienced this too, although I could not quite put my finger on it. Very annoying. Hope a hot fix can take care of it.

Props for the classy presentation and picture with fading contours

That largely depends on how big the game is and how much content they're developing. Because most of the infrastructure and rule set is done, I suppose they could develop a game about as big as the first one but with more reactivity and more content in areas that felt poor. In that case, another 12-16 levels would be about right imo. That said, when you can max out 2/3 in and subsequently steamroll everything on the highest difficulty setting with high-level scaling on, something isn't quite working fine I enjoy being powerful and I like the way characters can be developed in this game, so I would only call the nerf hammer on a very few selected OP things (*cough* Druid's ROTFLOL Storm *cough*), but the ante on PotD and high-level scaling should be upped a notch or twenty.

I've played on normal for a long time and only recently switched back to Slow Mode. It makes it easier to micro but sometimes it can be a little tedious for me as I like fast-paced action in combat. I'm using auto pause on "finishes ability."

I wasn't aware of the fact that the IE Mod had a fix for it. Unfortunately it has a few other annoying bugs that made me want to temporarily ditch it—though the maintainer confirmed he's looking into them so hopefully the next release will accompany me in my 3.04 playthrough

I agree that's crappy, but a Monk with fists is still plenty powerful and I favor it over a Monk with weapons

I'm on GoG so no 3.04 for me until next week. Patch notes generically indicate that several issues with Glittering Gauntlets were fixed, but no answer was given when I asked for specifics. If they work with Monks' fists, the build should be viable. However, stacking issues with retaliation, binding and irritating were not addressed; you will have to choose between the belt and the wreath. Not sure about the armor. QA could not reproduce the bug so hopefully it's fixed.

Torment's Reach does indeed take +1 Accuracy per character level. The bug lies in the fact that the Accuracy bonus from Transcendent Suffering applies to the first target you hit, but not to any subsequent targets hit by the cone AOE. It sounds like a bug because it's inconsistent behavior. Additionally, the bonus Accuracy from weapons still seems to apply. My test was with a Legendary weapon (+15 Accuracy) and the difference between the main target and the cone's targets was 12--same as the one-handed bonus.

I've just run a quick test and this doesn't seem to have been fixed. Cone hits do not benefit from Transcendet Suffering's Accuracy bonus, or from the one-handed Accuracy bonus if you're wielding a one-hander with no shield. A pity; I had forgotten about this bug or I would've brought it up again during the 3.04 beta. Regardless, boosting Accuracy in this game is fairly easy so from mid-levels on, your cone hits will never miss anyway I suspect the issue with weapon perks is also not fixed, but a Monk's fists scale up to a higher Accuracy and damage than even Legendary weapons—and if you're using Zahua, you even get a passive +10% attack speed perk from his personal quest (which imo makes him better than any hired Monk.)

Loading times are about the same (but will likely be improved upon in a sequel); saves from 3.03 are compatible (when a patch makes older saves obsolete it is generally specified in the patch notes very explicitly.)

Yes, you can; no, no downsides

True, but Tyranny already does it (they mentioned in one of their dev streams that higher difficulties feature improved A.I.) so I don't see why PoE 2 couldn't, wouldn't, or shouldn't get the same treatment I agree to an extent. What you say would make a lot more sense in the context of a more simulationist-inclined RPG system (which could certainly pave the way for very interesting and fun-to-play games) and would also make it arguably easier to balance games—the caveat is that I would still want there to be room for powergaming, for I'm an inveterate powergamer

What is this about, again?

When the weapon stuns on crit, the stun effect rolls separately against Fortitude to determine whether it lands and how long it lasts. Due to a bug, the result of this roll would not be used to calculate the stun duration, which would always be based off of the original crit that triggered it instead. More info here: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/88558-godansthunyr-durations-unaffected-by-grazehitcrit-303/?p=1833757&do=findComment&comment=1833757

I don't think that was ever going to happen, unfortunately

^ I'll add that I normally prefer higher difficulty setting to change A.I. and encounter design, rather than to give arbitrary cheesy bonuses to enemies' stats.

What you say stems from a broader problem PoE suffers from: A disproportionate power divide between completionist and non-completionist runs. In PoE the amount of XP required to level up increases linearly and therefore remains relatively small at higher levels; gaining a level makes a big difference in terms of how powerful a character is. These two things make it so that a completionist who maxes out has significantly more power than a non-completionist who doesn't. By contrast, in IE games the amount of XP required to level up increased sharply the higher your level (quadratically, if memory serves, but don't quote me on this), and at the end of the game completionists would be but a very few levels above non-completionists. All of this was explained in detail in an excellent thread over here back when the game was released; no link handy unfortunately. In this context, balancing PoE is necessarily hard. An assumption was made at Obsidian that most people who'd buy the game would be casuals who wouldn't do completionist runs, and the game was balanced in a way that would let characters below maximum level beat it. Unfortunately this also meant that completionists would end up steamrolling the second half of the game, as we know. A solution would have been to balance the hardest difficulty setting and the optional high-level scaling around full parties of 6 optimized (not necessarily min/maxed) characters within the context of a completionist run. For a sequel, the leveling scale should be changed to reduce the power divide between completionists and non-completionists, thus making it easier to balance the game—and of course the hardest difficulty setting should be balanced around a full party of optimized characters who do completionist runs. I don't mind maxing out relatively early, as I have the most fun when all my characters are maxed out, fully equipped, and realize the full potential of their build while looking totally badass XD But at that point I would like what fights are left to be challenging. If enemies die after two swings of my estoc, stuff gets boring fast.

Bracketed scaling would be a good solution, imo. Or scaling only for critical path material, so that it stays challenging while side quests can be super-hard or ROTFLSTOMP depending on your level. My preferred solution would be optional bracketed scaling for everything, provided that the final boss (and perhaps other climatic boss fights like the dragons) would scale all the way up to maximum level.

Afraid the time is over. They said they'd release the full-on patch today.

They've been speedy with the last couple patches though; might be tomorrow for GoG users.

^ same here XD