Logos

I like grazes. There is nothing as frustrating as missing. The only thing more frustrating than missing is watching your character do nothing for four seconds and then miss. I understand that action speed is required to balance combat, so I realize that that cannot be changed much, but I think grazes are an elegant solution to the problem of misses. I also don't think individual characters standing still is that big of a deal, because with a party of five you get a steady supply of screen shakes and impact sounds every .3 seconds or so. There's always something going on. The only time it ever became an issue for me was when I had an all-firearm party. If the battle wasn't over after the first salvo, waiting around could get pretty bad. I also disagree that combat felt too busy in PoE. If anything, I think it felt too slow, and I welcome the change of allowing fast mode in combat in PoE2. I've been replaying PoE recently and going through the endless paths, having to wait at the end of combat for the characters to change states from in combat to out of combat and the game clock from normal mode to fast mode became extremely aggravating, so much so that I would intentionally rush to the next battle at the end of a fight - still hurt and with resources spent - just to not have to go through it again. Allowing fast mode in combat will go a long way towards removing the feeling your characters are stuck in mud at the end of combat.

I've tinkered a bit with the AI system. It's very powerful; it lets me program in anything I would want my characters to do in battle. But that's where I take issue with it. It might be a bit too powerful. I haven't tried this yet, but I have an idea about how to set up the AI for a custom party that would let me clear the entire beta on POTD without taking any action as a player other than telling my characters where they should move. When you get too into it, it removes the game from the game. It turns POTD into story mode. If the game ships with the AI editor we have now, I'm sure there will be youtube videos soon after release of people clearing the entire game 1) on the hardest setting 2) without dieing 3) and without ever intervening in character behavior. You could probably even turn it into a Steam achievement, ropekid.

I am completely fine with godlike-specific head architecture clipping through helmets if they could just wear them. - The only reason I ever picked Godlike in PoE 1 was because the moon Godlike passive racial was almost unskip-ably good for solo runs. With the exception of the moon godlike, none of the passives weigh up against the benefits of, say, the Maegfolc Skull. Having Godlikes be unable to wear head armor is a stupid design decision based in a perceived adherence to realism that is just going to force your playerbase to not play Godlikes once they've obtained some beyond-first-playthrough skill with the system.

They aren't balanced against each other, though. Unless I'm just misunderstanding you. You are misunderstanding me. Going back to the first PoE, one of the initial design goals was to make every stat equally important. They didn't succeed in this in PoE (and they will not succeed in this in PoE 2, because, given the kind of game it is, combat challenges will naturally be more numerous), but more importantly than that, given the whole of the game, they wanted to make it more balanced. But they didn't succeed. I can't imagine what the corrresponding benefit of a metaphysics 10 score would be compared to mechanics 10. Given the nature of the game, given the amount of skill checks they put into it, there is a very clear path of optimal skillpoint investment, and it is not announced on the initial character creator screens.

First, "et. al." is an abbreviation of "et alii", meaning "and others" in the sense of "other people" Second, I agree with you that the active and passive skills need massive rebalancing. In the demo, stealth, mechanics, and survival are massively more important than metaphysics, religion, and arcana. I can role-play my character as hard as I want, metaphysics is never going to give me the in-game usability advantage of mechanics.

In my experience, it does have the oomph it needs. I got destroyed by an Engwithan saint when I first encountered it. When I reloaded, I opened the fight with two empowered Minoletta's Concussive Missiles, and he was killed immediately. It also made Mule-kick land pretty much every time for the mercenary fighter.

Ease of use suggestions: * On the overworld map, make the party/boat controllable with WASD. Clicking to move does not work well (center on player is deactivated for no reason, holding down click doesn't work, etc.) * Sort save games by time played instead of by Autosave time played and then Quicksave time played. * Please bring back PoE 1 style inventory. Having your stash always open is useless, and having to click on a character portrait to switch to their inventory is a chore, especially as you sometimes have no idea who picked up what. The PoE 1 style inventory presented relevant information better and more quickly. * Also, please remove the boat bell sound. Holy **** was that annoying, especially since it seemed to trigger with every click, and clicking being the only way to move. Pros: * The scripted interactions on possibly entering combat on the overworld map are great * Fast time during combat is a welcome addition (though settings to set your preferred combat speed would also be welcome) * Wizards with per encounter spells from the start is a great improvement. Cons: * The new penetration system is opaque and unintuitive * The icons instead of text in dialogue and scripted interactions are unclear and non-obvious, Mousing over them every time they show up is a chore. * Party limit of 5 is too low. 6 would be better. * Maybe this is because I played with only one tank, but engagement seems to have changed. It's become much harder to control who attacks what than it was in PoE 1. This makes most battles a cluster**** free-for-all.

I like the fast mode for combat, it's something I missed a lot when I played through PoE again recently. Besides, if it is too fast for you you can turn it off by clicking the right arrow on the pause globe.

I've killed all four apprentices, I have collected and read all four notes, but the door to concelhaut will not open. I only have the 4th option for the first question; the next question only has three options, even though I've read all the notes.

You can make any god one dimensional if you want. You've already given reductive interpretations of Wael and Hylea, but the others are just as easy, Galawain: fight fight fight fight FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT Woedica: *draws on raccoon eyes in eyeliner after artfully ripping her new jeans, then accidentally gets some on her Cure t-shirt* Woe(dica) is me, and you will pay for it in the end, ahahaha I'm not chaotic evil at all Berath: Always look on the bright side of life *whistles* That you can do this doesn't really say anything about them but more about your hermeneutics of popular culture.

Please tell me that your little ending slide thing just shows you impaled on one with a text caption reading: "Great job. Idiot." It's pretty close to that. You get to see a slide of the spikes at the bottom of the pit and the accompanying text is open to interpretation.

There's something sort of like this: you can get a bad end by jumping into the pit without having the favor of any of the gods. You end up impaled on a stalagmite.

I skipped almost all optional battles, and only just got the pacifist achievement with (if I remember correctly) 155 characters killed. I don't think there's another way to do it. I rested five times in total, twice in inns and three times in the field (two of which were in the last area). My main character was a rogue. The hardest part by far was the final boss fight, because my characters only JUST made level 7 by the time they got there. Grieving Mother's level 3 beam spell was really useful. I'm also never running expert mode again, because it's really, really annoying. I really like all the extra information you get when you're not using it. I think I'm going to try an iron man run next.

Post here about things you've done in PoE that you're (modestly or immodestly) proud of. I'll go first! I got three achievements on the same run that, according to steam, only 0.02%, 0.03%, and 0.06% of people have. I realize those numbers will probably go up in the coming months but nevertheless it feels pretty great!

Holy ****, you just used 'intensive purposes' for real

No, you don't need anything, but only some of the ghosts have dialog (on level 13, I assume that's the door you mean). If you mean level 14, then it's a bug. That door should open after killing Od Nua's shade.

Talk to the ghosts.

The Adra dragon is by far the hardest fight, nothing else even comes close.

It worked. I placed a poisonous gas trap in the 'bottle-neck', and the rest went as planned.

It worked. I placed a poisonous gas trap in the 'bottle-neck', and the rest went as planned.

Crossposted from my post in the other thread about this: I'll lay out my strategy. It doesn't work, yet, but I got her to one bubble once in three hours of combined attempts. I'm sick of it now but maybe one of you can refine it further. This is on normal. My party consists of a PC cipher, Eder, Grieving Mother, Durance, Aloth, and Kana. The ciphers have blunderbuses, Aloth has a bow, Kana and Durance have arquebuses. Eder has sword and shield and 10 of the level 4 endurance potions, and the skill that allows him to instantly revive when knocked out (I think it's called second wind). They're all level 12, and they all have the best gear the game has to offer. I've done everything else (all other quests (except for a bugged out one), warden bounties, etc.), as far as I can tell. To start the battle, I move Eder up the left side and my party along the bottom. Trigger the battle by moving Eder further up. Draw aggro with Eder by attacking, heal the acid breath with a potion. Move party over to the right along the bottom, kill the xaurip priests. Move party up along the right, kill the first Agaran, then kill the second. All the while Eder tries to maintain aggro on the dragon and heals himself with potions. Sometimes he'll get charmed, you have to be extra careful then, but it usually doesn't last long. After all the ads are dead, use the built-up cipher juice to cast disintegrate on the dragon. Disintegrate is raw damage, so it cuts through DR. You can also use your ciphers to try to stun it, but that fails about 50% of the time. The rest of the party unloads on the dragon. Freezing spells seem to work well with Aloth. Use Durance to raise downed allies who got hit with the breath when Eder lost aggro when you were walking around. Then die, die, and die again. I hate how completely unreliable maintaining aggro is. I think one way to improve this plan is to hire a second fighter with second wind and use two tanks on the adra dragon, but even then maintaining aggro would be massively unreliable. I'd replace Kana, or maybe Grieving Mother, but in the latter case there would probably be too little dps.

I'll lay out my strategy. It doesn't work, yet, but I got her to one bubble once in three hours of combined attempts. I'm sick of it now but maybe one of you can refine it further. This is on normal. My party consists of a PC cipher, Eder, Grieving Mother, Durance, Aloth, and Kana. The ciphers have blunderbuses, Aloth has a bow, Kana and Durance have arquebuses. Eder has sword and shield and 10 of the level 4 endurance potions, and the skill that allows him to instantly revive when knocked out (I think it's called second wind). They're all level 12, and they all have the best gear the game has to offer. I've done everything else (all other quests (except for a bugged out one), warden bounties, etc.), as far as I can tell. To start the battle, I move Eder up the left side and my party along the bottom. Trigger the battle by moving Eder further up. Draw aggro with Eder by attacking, heal the acid breath with a potion. Move party over to the right along the bottom, kill the xaurip priests. Move party up along the right, kill the first Agaran, then kill the second. All the while Eder tries to maintain aggro on the dragon and heals himself with potions. Sometimes he'll get charmed, you have to be extra careful then, but it usually doesn't last long. After all the ads are dead, use the built-up cipher juice to cast disintegrate on the dragon. Disintegrate is raw damage, so it cuts through DR. You can also use your ciphers to try to stun it, but that fails about 50% of the time. The rest of the party unloads on the dragon. Freezing spells seem to work well with Aloth. Use Durance to raise downed allies who got hit with the breath when Eder lost aggro when you were walking around. Then die, die, and die again. I hate how completely unreliable maintaining aggro is. I think one way to improve this plan is to hire a second fighter with second wind and use two tanks on the adra dragon, but even then maintaining aggro would be massively unreliable. I'd replace Kana, or maybe Grieving Mother, but in the latter case there would probably be too little dps.

When I try to enter the ice temple in Oldsong, it doesn't load. I just see the BG cursor on a black background, and then the game crashes. This happens every time I try to enter the ice temple, and only when I try to enter the ice temple. I think it may be due to the fact that I killed everyone in there on a previous quest (when I had to save someone's sister) -- I need to go back there now to complete a quest for the ice god.

I think this is insect swarm, but I'm not sure. Whenever it's cast on my party by high-level druids, it doesn't disappear from the character until the character dies. It persists after combat, through rests, and through area transitions. There are no druid or cleric spells to heal it.

Came here to post about this. (I played on normal) I wrecked my way through the entire game. Up until the Adra dragon there hadn't been a single battle I had to reload more than twice. The warden bounties were chump meat. I beat the end boss of the game first try. But that god damn dragon, jesus christ. If your fighter doesn't have second wind it's pretty much game over in five seconds. If your fighter isn't positioned away from the party, same thing. In my best attempt during over three hours combined of trying I got her to one bubble. I'm all out of strats.