AndreaColombo

Hope the fix for friendly fire and Caed Nua barks makes it in for 3.0 final

BMac's console commands should do the trick; just type them in upon starting a new game. And Blacsonn doesn't give +20% Focus any longer. It used to be +2 PER, +20% Focus which was pretty good for a Cipher. Now if you want +20% Focus, you need to chew Carow Golan and suck up a -4 INT with it, which is pretty non-ideal for a Cipher (and of course the option to get +4 Focus is no longer there.) I thought drugs were getting a boost in this patch? Doesn't look like it. Ciphers really got nerfed into a nadir for no apparent reason; what Josh mentioned on SA doesn't justify a nerf of this magnitude imo. Goodbye Cipher; it's been good while it lasted, but now pretty much any other class is better than you to have around. It did. It's called Spell Mastery.

But the nerf to 45 seconds was very much uncalled for.

^ as in, making Act I and II also scale up? I don't think so. Re: cipher nerf. Looks like there's no more room for a cipher in my parties. Pity; I was planning to hire a Backlash Beldam for one of my next play through. Will have to figure out a different character.

It was definitely 2/encounter in 2.03. Well, this Brisk Recitation thing kind of puts INT in a rather ... peculiar place with Chanters, now. You either keep it a 10 and try to chant as many phrases as possible so you can cast, or you pump it and you have an unavoidable ability that runs counter what you're trying to accomplish.

Yeah, when I raised this in the tech forums, Aarik mentioned his inability to repro the issue in 3.0 so I expected it to be fixed.

Weird, considering it is not optional. So it's basically a nerf to your chants' overall duration (which tangentially works counter your bonus from INT) in exchange for faster spellcasting?

Do they now? How does the scaling look like?

Why nerf? It already costs a talent slot to do less than a Barbarian (or Sanguine Plate) can do. I think 1/encounter would be OK (I know I would not suddenly rush to it anyway.)

I've just checked and Outlander's Frenzy was always like that. Pity it did not receive the per-encounter treatment; it might have made it a worthwhile talent (which it currently oh-so-isn't.) EDIT: Does Brisk Recitation increase linger length by the same amount the recitation time is reduced? E.g. If a phrase has a recitation time of, say, 4 seconds and a linger of 4 seconds for a total of 8—does Brisk Recitation change it to, e.g., 3.6 seconds recitation, 4.4 seconds linger so as to maintain the total duration of 8 seconds?

Nothing new under the sun, then But according to the patch notes: So all powers of the same level should always have the same cost. Whether that cost is fair or excessive is, of course, debatable (with immunities in place, I wouldn't waste 60 Focus on an Amplified Wave, for example.)

I can't remember either, but I recall Josh saying on SA that it would indeed be tied to the type of attack that downs you.

This is only partially accurate. DEX is the only way to shorten your casting animation; anything else will only affect your recovery time between spells. I usually keep DEX high on my casters as there are many ways to buff Accuracy into the stratosphere, but not many to buff DEX, and none to speed up your casting animations besides DEX.

^ getting frostbitten from cold-based attacks makes sense though, does it not?

^ thought it lost that role the moment many creatures became immune to Prone anyway (though with the introduction of Ground immunities, it might have claimed that title again.)

Mechanics being only really useful on one character is very (A)D&D-like. In IE games you also only needed one Rogue in the party who could find/disarm traps and pick locks. I don't think it's a problem. I used to pump Survival a bunch to make my Potions of Deleterious Alacrity of Motion last longer, but it looks like it has become a dump skill for me (I always get +3 to an attribute from Caed Nua as a resting bonus; not really interested in anything else) but I appreciate how the skill is now more valuable to more people. Ironically, now I'll probably be doing the Stealth/Lore thing except on my Mechanics guy and only invest a few points in Athletics for scripted interactions' checks. Play styles Shades, Specters, etc. should only be immune to "Ground" if my understanding is correct. Perhaps a Fighter's "Knock Down" is also flagged as "Ground"? It wouldn't super make sense to be able to knock a hovering creature down, imho. EDIT: You may want to report the wonky Accuracy breakdowns in the bug section.

^ Think Hylea gives Perception

Amplified Wave was 35 Focus in 2.03; if 3.0 made it 60, like delfador suggests, that's +15. Time Parasite from 40 to 70 is +30. I'd call that rather hefty.

I would add the Cipher nerf to the list of unwarranted changes alongside the Constant Recovery nerf. I don't recall anyone complaining about Ciphers after the last nerf, so why do it? "Time Parasite" was bad enough with a cost of 40 Focus, because it lasted too short to be worth my while (enemies aren't generally speedy enough to make me want to debuff their recovery; to boost mine, a Potion of Deleterious Alacrity of Motion is superior because it lasts longer.) At 70 Focus (a massive 30 increase!!), I would never even consider it. This was a very big change that feels completely uncalled for. Why? EDIT: nvm, Josh answered on SA. I'll reserve judgment until I play with the changes, but I'm still weary of them because of their magnitude.

In TB, I could spend my every "action point" (or however they're called in the system in used) to get within melee range of you, just to see you spend your turn walking away from me. This chase could go on forever, and I could never get any attacks through. In this context, it makes sense to grant an attack of opportunity against a character who leaves melee range, so that they are discouraged from fleeing melee range before the attacker can attack at least once. In RTwP, the cost of moving is moving. Or, to be more precise, the cost of moving is the DPS I'm not causing to my enemy because I'm busy moving around instead. Punishing it further makes absolutely no sense, especially when a disengagement attack triggers whenever my characters move one pixel to the left or to the right. I should be free to move around as I please, which I probably wouldn't do that much anyway because I prefer to solve my problems through violence (i.e. DPS.)

Any improvements in enemy A.I. that you can tell?

That's not what I meant, though. Engagement is a terrible mechanic that doesn't belong in a RTwP game. It belongs in a TB game, which Pillars is not. Thankfully there's a certain mod that disables it

Hooray! Once again, the universe is safe thanks to BMac Does that include the Caed Nua and Friendly Fire barks?

Brilliant! Dumb question: How does the Tab cycle thing work? I type "Toggle Scaler" in the console and start tabbing?

BMac—is there a console command to force scaling? I'm asking because—say I want a specific piece of equipment that can only be acquired in Act III, so I rush to it. I enter Act III at a level lower than 10 to acquire the item, then revert to Act II / TWM stuff and come back to Act III that I'm super pumped. The game won't ask me to scale difficulty, but I would definitely want to up the ante. Would be groovy if I could console-force it.