Infiltrator_SF

I really miss the option to have a rogue sit by in the shadows until the party engages a target, and then proceed to backstab someone when the opportunity presents itself. Now, once anyone breaks stealth so does everyone else, which diminishes the tactical options, in my opinion. Even if you initiate combat with a rogue from stealth, survival chances are minimal as you first have to recover from your strike in order to utilize one of your evasive abilities. Not only that but abilities that render you invisible still allow the projectiles and enemies to finish casting whatever they started when you broken out of stealth, meaning you are likely to eat a full salvo of ranged spells/arrows even if you manage to live up to the point of going invisible. Thoughts?

I don't have any achievements.. I am a KS backer, and don't even have that. Tried restarting steam, no fix.

I want muscle wizards. I am pretty sure many others want that , too. Not everything has to be as restricted as as DND rulebook from the BG2 Era. I think very few are opposing muscle wizards - and they were a thing in BG2 too with multi/dual class. The problem is, might wizards should by all means give up something to achieve their goal, which is to fight in melee. You'd think investing in might will give you an edge in hand-to-hand combat but deter you from casting powerful spells.. think again, max might and you not only get strong melee combatants, you also get strong spells. It's unbelievably odd (to put it lightly) that they didn't take a step back when they put this all together and said - "wait, something isn't right here". Unifying melee and spell potency in a single stat is ridiculous. Spells potency should definitely be governed by a cerebral stat, and yes, I know the duration is affected by some of them, but that's beside the point - max might caster will both hit hard and cast the strongest fireball.. who the hell thought that was a good idea?

I think it's really a bad decision to try and mask Str into Might and call it a spellpower attribute as well.. when you think about someone MIGHTY, do you think about Stephen Hawking? Because he's certainly mighty mentally but I wouldn't classify him with that attribute, ever. So instead of trying to sugar-coat strenght just make it a physical attribute like it's supposed to be and, like OP suggested, give mages some other stat to pump in order to maximize spell damage, it's only natural. I think it's stupid to max physical attributes and get spell power in return. Yes, you shouldn't be able to screw up characters like you could in D&D. No, you shouldn't backtrack all the way and make the system retard-proof. You're supposed to plan ahead and make a character into something that can utilize their attributes to achieve specific goals (i.e. battle mage shoud definitely put points into might.. pure mage - NEVER), instead of being able to put a blindfold on, pump random stats and end up with a perfect character anyway. Stats are there to make a difference. If you want everything to work no matter what you pump, just f***ing remove them then.

I think that dumping points into whatever and still beating the game should only work on easy difficulty mode. If I wanted to play that hard/one save game, I better get my teeth kicked in if I try somethig wonky like str wizard or int barbarian. Diablo 3 tried the 'everythig works' style and it absolutely failed.

I am not a beta participant, but from what I can read there's not too much incentive for certain classes to get stats that are beneficial to them. For example, mage spells benefit from strength, which I find really awkward, unintuitive and superfluous. Str should only matter to mages that engage in physical combat.

I really don't like the modular portraits. They should have all of them in their original form or let modders do the variations.

Easy answer: sex.

Meh, I wish there were no portraits with a base that change.. I'd rather have them unique. That said some of the portraits are really good, but I find the elf meh because of the aforementioned reasons.

I was a rogue/thief/assassin in all my RPG playthroughs (yes, I even made TNO a thief).. I don't plan on stopping here

What fascinated me about romance in BG2 is how different the reception of them was among players. For example I really liked Viconia but was barely able to go past 2 dialog segments of Aerie - felt like a teen romance. Someone else might say Viconia was a complete domino bitch and had no merit being a romantic character in the slightest, while Aerie was really "sweet" and kind (I cringe as I type this). I'd like romances to exist, there's no reason not to, even more subtle ones, like in PS:T. But I guess it's also good to get a feel for the characters first and then have the romance option later (sequel?).

Mcdonalds sells well but is ****. Welcome to earth.

I am certainly blaming EA but I'm never said Bioware are not without it. Most probably is that structurally Bioware is far from what it used to be so even if we were to consider their whole team as an entity it would be completely different by now.. That said I'm sure no one in bioware thought how an in-game merchant to sell you DLC is a good idea. I also think that making an announcement that DA3 has a "fully gay" character is also EA marketing brilliance. Yes I do loath EA, and to a slightly smaller extent, activision/ubisoft too.. just look at their core "philosophies" and the way they exploit something that should be nurtured. I understand that as a business, money is the primary objective, but there are lots of ways you can make money AND keep your consumers happy.. (Valve/Dota 2/TF2 being a primary example imho). The bottom line, EA just wants to push out products, not games.. anyone who thinks DA3 will be different is very naive.

What bioware used to do and what bioware does now has nothing to do with what people used to blast them for. I'm one of the old-schoolers, and, of course Bioware will do things differently given the numerous, and legitimate accusations on the account of DA2/ME3. The only reason DA:O turned out good was because that game was a very, very long time in the making. EA still screwed up the DLC (a merchant offering you DLC in your camp, just shows how much they are keen on selling it), but overall I was plesantly surprised. I tried the ARGHHHH version before buying DA2. And boy was I glad I didn't buy it, they ruined everything that made DA:O good. But that makes sense because DA:O wasn't really a game catering to the masses, which is a big, big no-no when it comes to EA. Need to make that game retard proof right? Inbred rednecks have to beat it on normal otherwise it's too complicated. Don't forget blatant dungeon recycling, superficial "romances" and "fast-paced", "visceral" combat! How about some of that gay sex? Don't mind if I do, and get ready for DA3's "fully gay" (actual quote) character. It would be sad if it wasn't so hilarious. So yeah, what's left of Bioware is nothing, they're just a husk about to crumble beneath EAs gargantuan ****, after witch they'll promptly jump on the next studio and drive it into the ****ing ground like they did with the previous ones.

Why does this thread even exist? DA:I will have feature X? It's like saying watch out Ferrari, the guys over at Pontiac will have a transmission system too!.. I mean who gives a flying f? The games are completely different and tailored towards different audiences, for all that's worth, PoE has more stuff in common with old RPG shooters like System Shock 2 and Deus Ex than it does with the "next" gen RPGs. And that's a really good thing too. The Bioware we used to love is long gone, nothing but a shell remains of it.

The point was more that there doesn't have to be an epic courtship or game spanning buildup that ends in fade to black diaper sex. Sometimes people just click for whatever reason. As far as plausibility, I guess it would have to depend on the story but on it's own I see no reason why a casual relationship turning into something more serious can't be a valid "Romance" subplot You've made me give this more thought than I ever intended to because "Romance" in games isn't something I really care much about, just those points I kept seeing pop up. So now I guess a duel is in order. Pistols at noon? Swords at sunset? I'll let you know now that I'll very likely be late so please feel free to start without me Oh I fully agree that there doesn't have to be an old school knight and princess type of romance, but let's face it, from a practical point of view, if you had sex with someone first and then had the whole adventure in front of you, they'd have a ton of material to rewrite, because the whole interaction with that character (not to mention potentially other party members) would be COMPLETELY different, as opposed to gradually building up, which is far more practical from a writing point of view, and, in my opinion, plausible for the setting/party interaction. I don't care much about romances in games because I've found them to be generally very bad and/or awkward, but I accept your duel and promptly slap you with my glove.

It's set up as spoiler free on the main story. I see, well that is convenient, but I'm still always more willing to test multiplayer games anyway as those tend to be a lot more fun in such environments (like dayz).

Erm... how exactly? A bit offtopic, but I just couldn't picture Geralt caring that much about Triss as the developers might have tried him to be. That said, TW series is one of my top 10 games ever, and that's no small feat considering I've played all the best games in what I consider the "golden" age of PC gaming.

One night stands aren't romances though, just consensual one-time sex. Can you imagine having that with a party member? Obsidian would have their hands full with awkward dialogue choices for the remainder of the adventure. In witcher, these worked, but were of course as mundane and superficial as they can get - and deprived the central plot romance from having any sort of weight. I agree that one-night stands can evolve into something in real life, but in a fantasy game that has them as a subplot at that? I don't think it's plausible.

Meh, I am not a fan of betas for story-driven games anyway.

I think people need to differentiate between having a romance main plot (starcraft) and subplot (PST). It's far more difficult to execute a love story in an environment where it doesn't have to happen at all, and make it work without killing the suspension of disbelief. It's obvious the love story of PoE would have to be a subplot, of course, and if it can't take place over the majority of the game to make it believable, than I'd rather not have it in an expansion/DLC, the window is too short for anything realistic to happen. I say realistic, because if you look at Bioware has been doing under EA's boot is laughable at best, the Dragon Age "romances" that can be escalated within 15 minutes into awkward sex scenes are vomit-inducing at best. Same goes for Mass Effect. I just didn't feel anything there, too lilttle happened for me to believe characters had any sort of connection, this was taken even further in ME2. I think the BG2/PST romances were good, though annah/aerie were approaching teenage girl fantasies. I think people should read some good books instead of watching action movies when they wanted to get an inspiration for a good love story.

I am ok with no romance as long as it sets the scene up for future games. Dragon Age: Origins, coming from an already drained Bioware was a game that was fine in many respects but really lacked in this department - you could pick Morrigan up, chat her up a few times and all of a sudden you're already into the weird bra scene. This really kills the the "romance" aspect of the game. I much prefer the hard-time restrictions of conversations and events that can move a romance forward, and think that if we spend a lot of time with someone first (like, the entire PoE game, assuming there will be a sequel) and THEN make a move on them is far more interesting than just going into full romances with characters you've just met.

This game went under the radar for me and I literally can't believe it. It seems like a wet dream come true for IE lovers. Anyone else has a thing before getting a cRPG, you just absorb all the info regarding skills/abilities/attributes and basically have a worked out character before the game is even installed?

They always gave haste to the user, and as such the APR bonus. But I don't think it was intended. That's convenient. I guess in such a manner, having the boots wouldn't be a chore (this was further amplified by bad IE pathing I guess).

One thing that annoyed me but was mandatory on harder difficulties/certain classes/mods in BG2 and similar games were the boots of speed. For those who don't know, these gave a permanent haste bonus to the character, and were fairly rare and set in special locations (typically mid-late game). The haste bonus gave them a tactical and combat advantage, granting both APR and move speed bonuses is arguably one of the strongest buffs, especially when they're permanent. But they also had a few problems - first, the game looked silly when you'd see characters blaze across the screen, they might as well given them tire screeching sounds when you'd make turns with them. The second problem was that until your entire party was equipped with them, you basically had to throttle the guys on crack because the ones without the boots would take ages to catch up. So, my question is, did this mechanic actually deprive more than it added to the game, and will something similar be in PoE?