Marceror

This is a very good idea, but I wouldn't hold your breath. OE has far, far bigger fish to fry right now if they think they're going to release in 2014.

I guess this one is overly obvious, but what the hell. The Fellowship: Gandalf: Godlike (Human) Wizard - Probably Moon, but with a human looking portrait. Boromir: Human Fighter Gimli: Dwarf Fighter Strider/Aragorn: Human Ranger Legolas: Elf Fighter/Archer Frodo: Orlan Rogue (Frodo will proxy all of the little folk) Would be conspicuously missing a healer, but this is about as accurate as I could think to make it.

Interesting build. I wonder if this is truly as good as it seems on paper. It could be the new ultra-gamey, min-max party build. I haven't had enough experience with these classes or the game yet to have a proper understanding. Might be something I'll have to try at some point.

Doesn't much matter to me when the game comes out, but I think it's a bit premature to be calling for a delay. That entirely depends on how quickly they can knock out these bugs. Yeah exactly the beta is out for 2 days now. Actually at the time you posted it was exactly 4 1/2 days. Doesn't make a lot of difference to the argument, but I really would have hoped we would have seen a patch by now to address some of the more egregious bugs. The beta to me is fundamentally broken at this point, and I'm hopeful OE will address this will all haste.

This is my squad: Epic!

+1 This needs to be added.

Now that we're getting our arms around the game a bit, I'm curious what everyone's "ultimate" player created parties would consist of. I think mine would like something like this: Ranger - Death from afar with a powerful animal ally. Excellent. Fighter - The best tank of the bunch, and all parties need a good tank. Priest - Life restoring stamina heals and excellent party buffs. Probably would be my "gunner". Rogue - I've always been a fan of rogues, and would almost certainly dedicate a party slot for this. Chanter - A great support character that is extremely versatile. Could be replace with a monk or paladin for more frontline power, or maybe a druid for more spell power. Wizard - You have to have a wizard. I would likely take the muscle wizard for a spin in this group.

I expect that I'll eventually do an all player created party, and likely a muscle wizard will have a place in that group. Sounds like fun.

@Ahvz - I'm in agreement that the level of micro should reduce with additional polish and patches. But the "per encounter" abilities lead me to expect that it will generally far outweigh what it was in the IE games. In the IE games your abilities were pretty much all on a per rest basis, so the natural tactic was to save those abilities until they were absolutely needed. But PoE seems to be balanced around those abilities being used in perhaps all but the most trivial of battles. Again, I don't mind this necessarily. Ultimately it results in a more tactical combat experience, and that's a good thing in my book. But I'm still very much still getting used to the combat system in the game. I really can't wait to see it polished up a bit. It can only get better from here.

Now that I've been able to play a bit more of combat, I'm not concerned with the speed of combat so much. There are 3 games speeds by the way, so I stick with the middle one. But what I'm finding is that PoE less a Real Time with Pause game and more a Pause with Real Time game. I tend to spend more time paused than not in combat, as I'm perpetually issues commands, engaging special abilities, casting spells, and just trying to make sure all of my guys are making their proper contributions in combat. This feels very different to Baldur's Gate and other IE games, where it was much more common for me to send in my troops to fight, pausing just occasionally to cast a spell or activate an ability. It's not that I mind this per say, but the more I play the more I think turn based combat would have made more sense for the way combat is shaping up in this game.

It appears I'm going to need to wait for the patch after all. Even without saving my game I'm still sometimes having my gear disappear. And if it's not that, I end up with a character that gets stuck for some reason. I tried 5 more games today (up to 8 now), and got further in some than others, but not far enough to complete any quests before either a character got stuck or equipment disappeared. Here's to hoping there will be a patch very soon! EDIT - Oh, and looting has been a real problem. Most of the stuff that I loot never makes it to my inventory, and just vanishes. Well, I do have a Divinity Original Sin sitting in my Steam library, with only around 2 hours clocked in thus far. Seems a more sensible destination for me while waiting for the critical bug patch.

@Justin Not sure why but I have Od Nua in mind when I hear the Acapella piece. I associate with something very old, which I believe Od Nua to be.

I'm a big fan of this one too.

Hey Justin, for what it's worth, I'm absolutely in love with the theme music that plays when you're going through char gen. I think it's one of those tracks that is going to have a massive nostalgia factor with fans over time. Well done. I also really love the acapella piece that has been included in some of the game marketing. EDIT: By the way, will that one be included in the game somewhere? It should be!

Nice. That was just an "excerpt"?

Sounds like an important safety tip. Will keep that in mind!

This one is repeatable. Happened to me too. Got it. So, no more switching weapons during combat. Maybe no more switching weapons period.

So I deleted my saves, started a new game without saving. I was finally able to get through some combats without any equipment disappearing. I made this mistake of using my fighter's crossbow to pull an enemy toward my party, and seemingly things bugged out when I tried to switch back to my axe, causing the fighter to get stuck in place. I took a risk and did a save and reload. Seemed okay at first, but eventually my cleric and wizard started losing gear. So I started again. This time I opted to create a Chanter from the inn. The chanter got stuck in the inn, so I guess I won't be creating any characters again. So it's still pretty rocky, but at least I'm slowly learning how to work around the game's many bugs. Will try again later today, I suppose.

Oh, I see, by gather your party I didn't realize they meant that a group orgy needed to happen. I'll try that next time! Group orgy FTW! Condolences for whomever gets hooked with my ranger's bear!!

I'm getting this message when attempting to rest in Dyrwood crossing. My party is gathered and there are no enemies close by. Is this a bug, or do I need, like, bedrolls or something to be able to rest outdoors? I'm playing a ranger, for what it's worth.

Hmm, I figured what the hell and went ahead and save + reloaded. So far all my gear is present and the Fighter isn't stuck any more. Will push a bit further and see if I get lucky.

Well, I managed to make it through a couple of battles with no disappearing equipment. That's definitely an improvement. Currently my BB_Fighter is stuck and unable to move. I'm guessing that this occurred because I used his crossbow to draw out a beetle, and things seemed to be out when I tried to switch back to the axe. At least now I know not to switch weapons in combat. Going to restart and go in again.

Rightio then!

If that is really how you feel then you should wait until the game is fully released. This is a beta version for testing only, and testing really requires a special mental patience that very few have. There is very little value in testing this current version until a hotfix with the main issues is released, even when that is released, there are still going to be quite a few other bugs that we were not able to find simply because the current issues leave us in a state that the game breaks before we find them. Good advice, I'm sure. But I won't be following it.

Okay... going in for real this time. Honest!