LordBlade

Yes, I was really happy to see the pop up boxes for various terms in the game. The first game desperately needed that, as they kept throwing countless terms at you without any real explanation.

Personally, I find more to be better. As long as they're useful in some way. And I mean useful to someone, I know a lot of people have a much different playstyle than myself. Personally, I never really used buffs. Everything I used was just straight damage stuff. But I'm sure there's people who use nothing but buffs. In a lot of these games though, it does come down to most people having that same basic list of spells as a go to. It's nice to be able to find some variety. My biggest problem with the first game was how most mages shared the same damn spellbooks. You'd kill 20+ mages from a group, and they all carried the exact same list of spells. I would have loved to see them give every mage their own spell list. Even if many are similar (which makes sense) add a little variety here and there to make each mage unique.

I found PoE1 to be a little boring overall. I loved the game as a whole, but I did find lots of the writing to feel overly dragged out. As (12)Mage said, a lot of the story felt like it was just you being told of some story that's going on, instead of you feeling like you're a part of it. Much of the game had you doing things, and then learning about important stuff, then doing more things, then learning more. It didn't feel like you were directly guiding the story.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1F6KjWCA1s4xPvzbN0Ef6DnU17twc_D3H/view?usp=sharing Assuming the "Game Complete" save is the one needed (figure it would be), this should have what you want. Basically the good-guy path all through. Did every side quest available. Finished everyone's personal missions.

So, which save specifically does PoE2 look for?

The game won't remove my saves if I uninstall the game, will it? I basically just finished doing a "perfect" run of the first game in preparation for this one. But I'd like that space back.

So I played through the first game (with all DLC) on GoG, but I have the new game on Steam. Is there any issues with importing saves?

You couldn't in the first game, so I doubt you can here. Which is disappointing.

It's a district in Defiance Bay. The quest you need to complete is part of the main quest line, so if you continue with that you'll hit it eventually. Ah boo. I've been trying to get as much done without advancing the main quest as possible.

Where is Heritage Hill?

Seriously, the newest reports should be at the TOP of the list. Instead of making us have to scroll down to the bottom of an ever expanding list. Why would anyone ever think that setting up the way it is now is a good idea? If we open that report section, the first thing we should be seeing is the more recent events that happened. Not the first things that ever happened and make up scroll down to see what's currently going on.

I can see the table, it's got a blue highlight over it. I clicked it the first time I was in there (after killing everything) and it apparently opened a doorway at the back of the room. But the table still highlights (even though clicking on it again does nothing). And I can't talk to the spirits beyond the useless "Hello?" message.

Yeah, I'd heard you'd be able to build multiple things at once as well. Guess they changed it before release.

On level 13, you're apparently supposed to speak to one of the spirits to get the password for the door. However it's not possible to actually ask about the password. After clearing the entire level, and looking all the things, all of the spirits that you can click on just give you the same lines about how they're not noticing you. You can say "Hello?" and you just get a message about them not responding. There's no options with any of them to ask for the password. Which makes opening the door completely impossible. This is a MAJOR bug that needs an immediate fix.

I've got the same problem. I was trying to figure it out myself and got frustrated. So I looked it up, and the guides say to talk to the spirit to ask for the password. But I get no conversation options. I can say "Hello?", but they all just ignore me.

It's definitely a great feature. I wander the map some exploring and killing all I can before going into town. When I get there some guy asks me to kill some monsters for him, and I tell him I took care of that on the way over. Bam, quest done. No running back out to an area you already cleared out to kill some magically spawning enemies that weren't there the first time.

If you are going to put in fetch or kill quests, please make it possible to complete these tasks ahead of time. A lot of games punish players who like to explore by making them have to go back to an area just to finish some quest they could have already done. If you explore an area before going to do quests, you should be able to complete a lot of tasks along the way. Many games will give you a quest such as killing 10 orcs. If we'd already killed 10+ orcs in the area before reaching the quest giver, please reward us for doing so. Don't make us go out and kill ANOTHER 10 orcs simply because we didn't have the quest earlier. One of the things I loved about Risen and Risen 2 was that you could complete a lot of quests before you actually had them. If you were one of those players who likes to explore everything and kill stuff before going into town to talk to people, you would often get a lot of your quest objectives done. So you'd find the guys who'd ask you to do stuff and be able to tell them it's already done. They are often surprised but give you your reward right there. They don't send you back out to do something you've already done. Naturally for story missions and such there would be stuff that's locked until you progress, but for most basic quests you can easily do the requirements before you're asked.

Fighter. I always play the fighter first. I like swords.

While Mass Effect failed in many areas, one thing they did do a very good job with is the relationships. Especially with Garus and Tali. Garus was the ultimate bromance for a male character. He was that kickass best friend who you grow to love over time, who you can compete with, joke with, smack around when smartassing, all of that. The bridge scene in ME3 with Garus was friggin' brilliant. I would love to see that level of friendship form with party members in PE. As for Tali, she was incredibly well done (until the end of ME3). Firstly, in the first game she wasn't presented as a love interest, she had more of that "little sister" vibe going. She was there beside you, a trusted companion, someone who could praise you or point out your faults. At the same time, she had a kickass personality (well defined, made sense during various scenes, wasn't "cliche"). She naturally became the object of desire for countless players. Hell, I would have taken her over the other options in the original game. As the games progressed, she matured in a way that made sense considering everything that was happening. She didn't blindly throw herself at you as some characters did, at the same time she didn't give you the cold shoulder until some arbitrary event happened. Her relationship had a very natural feel to its progression. Some characters were basically just "there" until the trigger kicks in for them to jump you. Tali grew on you, and the closeness between you could flow into either a close friendship or a romance, and either way felt "right". Another thing that made Tali so desirable was her mystery. You never saw her face (until the horrible stock photo incident of ME3). While she was clearly feminine, she was fully covered (yes, it's a racial thing, but it added to her charm). Other women were given sexy outfits or made out to be tomboys, without a sensible design to them. Is the super low cut skin tight spandex really the best thing to be wearing for any reason other than flaunting sexuality? A hint of something is often far more seductive than flaunting it. You don't need to make a woman a sex object to make her desirable. Make her REALISTIC and that will have far more impact. Also there's nothing wrong with the young innocent approach to a character. It was party of Aerie's charm in BG2. In fact BG2 generally did a great job with the female love interests (never played a female character so can't comment on the men). You were given a decent array of personalities, from the serious woman to the young naivete to the seductress. The only real problem was that the romances didn't really flow well. There were some decent scenes, but they tended to trigger artificially. You didn't so much have a natural flow to the relationship, rather just the next arbitrary relationship option conversation. That definitely needs to be worked on for PE.

I want multiple endings. And I don't just mean the typical "happy ending" and "you're the new villain" endings. I want the shades of grey. Variations on ending types. So you could have the "save the world ending" with... You survive with your love interest and live happily ever after. You survive but your love dies. You die but your love survives. You both die and your party avenges you. You save the world but large areas are still destroyed. You save the world but a new enemy runs off with uber powered artifact to threaten it again later. Etc. On the flip side, the "bad" endings could have... You steal the bad guy's power and become the new big bad. (with or without your romance at your side). You lose, world ends. You destroy the bad guy's super weapon but don't defeat him (the world has to still struggle with a massive war). You sign up under the bad guy. You try to help the bad guy and are killed by some other hero. etc...

Food source in emergencies. Meat shield (lift them in front of you to soak up arrows). Raise them from the dead (though I heard this is going to be super rare if at all possible). Have them stuffed and mounted in your keep. Throw them down a hall to check for traps. Dragon bait. Spell components. Shelter from the cold. Makeshift projectiles (parts of them anyway). Tools (femurs make good clubs).

I definitely think a high level of gore (within reason) would be best. They could always just add a "gore" option that players can toggle (or adjust) to their needs. EDIT: To expand, when I say high level of gore I mean that if you score a big crit and kill something, having limbs chopped off would make sense. Those fireball spells should leave charred remains. Basically along the lines of what Fallout did. While it was entertaining to squish people out of their armour in Baldur's Gate, I think it wasn't very well implemented. You went from people dying and falling over to them exploding in huge blasts for no obvious reason.

Here's how I'd like to see the classes handled for the most part: Warrior - The Killing Machine Warriors are there to hit stuff an make it bleed. They would get the best combat bonuses (hit and damage rates), the best armour, the best weapons, and definitely the most health. Now in most games of this sort warriors can smash stuff, and that's about it. I think they need to be given a few more options to make them more interesting (though admittedly I love playing the pure smashy warrior). Warriors should also be given options as to just how to be built. You can go for the pure strength death machine, the unstoppable tank, or the finesse warrior who focuses more in disarming and outmaneuvering their foes. Firstly, battle shouts. A warrior should be able to inspire their party in battle. Give them an array of shouts and such to use in combat. Some would buff the attack or defense of allies, or maybe give a brief speed boost as they call the charge. On the flip side their shouts should have an effect on the enemy as well. Taunts to pull attention to them and make them the focus, your "MMO tank" type abilities. In a lot of games they give such abilities to a rogue type class, which never made sense to me, why would a rogue ever draw attention to themselves in combat? These shouts should be brief abilities with diminishing effects. The first time you give your inspiring shout your allies rally to the call, but as you use it over and over during a fight, it will have less impact on them (the same for those targeting foes). That berserker scream might be startling the first time, but on the tenth you're not quite as impressed. Basically these wouldn't be passive auras like a paladin would have, but rather brief buffs that during hard battles can turn the tide if timed correctly. Thief - The Skill Monkey A thief's main role should be support. The whole traps, locks and stealing angle. As well as giving them "con man" options with speech and streetsmarts. They should have a wide array of skills open to them (letting you be decent at a lot of things or great at one or two things). Outside of combat they would play a key role in managing what's going on in the environment. Finding and disarming traps, using stealth to scout ahead, stealing what's needed, etc. In combat a thief's abilities would be more support based. Their damage output should be limited. They've not focused on being a death machine like a warrior but rather on honing their other skills, which can play a part in combat through the use of items like smoke bombs, poisons and the like. They would also have their traditional backstab ability. This goes beyond simply attacking from behind (which would give anyone a bonus) but rather focusing on their skills of staying completely hidden. In the heat of combat you know that there are other threats on the battlefield, so while they might get an advantage hitting you from behind you can still somewhat react to their presence. A thief's backstab comes from their skill at being completely unnoticed until the last second which lets them line up a better aimed strike at vitals as opposed to someone who is known to be there. A thief shouldn't be good at standing toe to toe with enemies. They would be better at dodging and evading attacks, but they don't have anything like the lasting power of an actual warrior, less hit points, less damage dealing, etc. A thief should be given options to focus on more combat skills if they choose, adding more dodging, parrying and counters rather than straight up damage. Making use of their nimbleness to survive. Mage - Options Galore At the core the mage is a caster. They are physically weak (because they focus all their effort on learning magic instead of building their physique... though the ability to make more of a "fighter mage" at the cost of spell proficiency could work). Combat is something that a mage avoids, when they do take part it's preferably at a nice safe distance slinging spells from afar. They can use a lot of defensive spells to help them survive melee, but their options would be limited and temporary, when the spells run dry, they're toast. But the spells are what makes a mage special. They should have a ton of options in that regard. A lot of spells would be combat oriented (just due to the nature of the game) but they should still have a lot of non-combat spells (opening and locking spells, invisibility, detecting lies or influencing others, enchanting, etc). There should be several schools of magic (fire, water, earth, air, light, dark, summoning, enchanting, destruction, creation, etc) with a lot of spells being cross-school ones. A basic firebolt might be a pure fire spell, while an incendiary cloud would be fire/air. Various schools would work well with some and bad with others (fire and water schools wouldn't mix well, there would be a few low level spells but high level ones would be rare and hard to cast). Mages should be able to specialize (if they choose) to be more skilled in certain schools while making them weaker with the opposing ones. I don't think it should be a straight out exclusion of spells (a light mage could cast dark magic, they'd just suck at it). This would allow a lot of customization and let players make a mage suited to their tastes or playstyle. As for how magic works, that would rely heavily on the general game engine options. But I think that a mana system based on the schools would be interesting. So as they level they choose which schools to focus in and gain more mana of that type. Spells would cost varying amounts of mana of the school they belong to (so if your mage has a lot of fire mana they can blast away with fire a lot but be limited in other spell types). You could make a mage who could blast away with their favourite spells all day or one who's more balanced and can cast whatever's needed in any situation. The mana could be added as they learn new spells, to keep things simple. So as you learn light spells, your light mana pool increases. Mana could regenerate slowly over a day. So basically in 24 hours the mage would have their mana back to full. It would be similar to a memorization system though be more natural (the whole "you've forgotten the spell because you cast it" never made much sense to me). If anything the more a mage uses certain spells the better they should be with them. There could be various perks/traits/skills/whatever to give the mage bonuses to schools or mana regen or other such things. Priest - The Holy Mage A priest for the most part should play much like a mage. The main difference being on the spells they have access to, those being more (un)holy based. More heals and buffs as opposed to straight out blasty spells. But they should also have a lot of non-combat options with their spells. For the most part they should work as mages do. They however would have a diety they follow which would limit what spells and such they can use. Giving bonuses to their diety's focus and penalties in other places. As for combat, I think it needs to be decided if a priest is a "priest" or a classic "cleric". Priests would be very much like mages, physically weak, few armour or weapon choices and basically a liability if caught in melee, doing support from the rear. If the priest is going to be the "cleric" sort, then they should have better armour and weapons (almost as good as fighters, though with weapons based on a selection that their god allows). Personally I'd rather see priest and cleric as two separate classes. The priests being basically straight up holy mages while clerics are weaker fighters who have access to (un)holy magic.

I feel that a Rogue's job should focus on being a "thief" not an "assassin". A rogue should be made around utility and support. Detecting and disarming traps. Picking locks and pockets. Stealthing to scout ahead. And often the con man. Their combat skills should be minimal because of the dedication needed to master all the other skills. It's the same reasoning behind why a mage would have poor combat skills, because all their training is focused on magic so they have little put into melee and such. I think that a backstab bonus for rogues is appropriate however. It's not so much a matter of knowing anatomy and such, but being able to take advantage of a situation. Yes, a fighter can attack from behind, but generally you know he's coming. In a fight you're always trying to keep track of all opponents, so while you might leave yourself open to attacks from behind you're also somewhat aware of when they come and will try to avoid them. When that clanking wall of steel comes at you you're not totally off guard. Meanwhile the rogue's backstab bonus is more focused on their traits as a rogue, such as hiding in shadows and such. They get the bigger bonus because they are waiting for the best time to strike, when the enemy has no clue they're there. Any fighter will learn decent anatomy and know where to stick a sword, but their focus will be on training how to swing it and how to block. Learning how to fight an opponent head to head. Meanwhile the rogue doesn't put in as much training in such areas (hence they are weaker in straight up fighting) but spend a lot of their time honing other skills, such as learning the best place to put a dagger, as well as their skills with the thiefly arts. Rogues should NOT be a DPS class. They should be a support role. Their main role should be OUTSIDE of combat. Their combat role should be limited, doing little actual damage for the most part, but they are given the backstab as a way to be somewhat useful in combat while still relying on their stealthy skills. They can also be given skills such a smoke bombs, poisons and other distractions to help support the real fighters in a group. Abilities that won't damage much but will help the others in the party have a better chance of taking down the enemy. And yes, a good fighter will learn all the tricks of the trade. But when you're in close combat with an enemy you don't have the time to rummage through your items to find the right bombs and powders to use all the dirty tricks. A rogue isn't in the thick of things as much and would generally try to avoid being the focus of attention, which allows them to focus more on their sneaky skills.