Prime-Mover

For one, it requires people to read. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/77723-how-do-you-guys-bring-yourself-to-read/ It's a game for well-read people, or at least people who like to read. Do you want to make a point that well-read people are less intelligent than fans of action movies ? That Pillars of Eternity would be better with cutscenes instead of scripted interactions and books ? That a mature game is a game with gore and sex, gore and sex like Dragon Age 2 ? What does preference for reading and action movies have to do with intelligence, at all?

Ah, for some reason assumed it was in a suggestion for an expansion. But no, of course not then.

There's not really a no-spoiler way to say this, but wouldn't certain story elements affect the players motivation for building this temple? [Edit: more specifically, story elements which unfold in the last act]

That poll is not very usefull unless you stipulate what you mean by 'optimum' here. E.g. do you mean in terms of beating the game? In terms of fun? In terms of completion? So people will be voting for different things here.

Kids today -- they're no damn good! Why, when I was their age ... [grumble grumble hacking cough] Eh? Where was I? Oh yes, I was talking about my enlarged prostate. Gets me up three times a night! I never talked about kids. I meant the low attention span casual gamer. 1) Put your hand over the mans body so you can only see his face. 2) Now try to see if you can avoid picturing him pooping.

I wish people would stop spouting this ridiculous straw man. Game difficulty (or lack of it) Is. Not. The. Problem. That's not a ****ing straw man mutherf*ckah Yes it is. I don't think it was intended as one, and it's just general retardation at play, but it is a strawman. It implies that the position from which the critique is formed is one of difficulty, and that the argument amounts to "I'm very good, the game is too easy, change it". Which is really, really ****ing far from the truth. I have zero interest in Path of the Damned, because Path of the Damned is based on inflated numbers, which isn't what the entire issue is about at all. If it was just about flat difficulty, you could solve it by just upping all numbers across the board. It's very easy to create nigh-unkillable opponents and unsolvable encounters. The game is "too easy" because of systemic issues, not because Stun has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the game mechanics or because I've got 25 000 posts on the boards, and we've always argued around how game mechanics interacts and what can be done to improve it, not just cry about how easy it is for us 1337 harcr0e playuhs to dominate casuals for the purpose of our e-peen. My point was of course entirely pedantic, but misunderstanding the other persons position does not in itself equal a straw man. There has to be an argument either implicit or explicit for this to be the case.

I wish people would stop spouting this ridiculous straw man. Game difficulty (or lack of it) Is. Not. The. Problem. That's not a ****ing straw man mutherf*ckah

First of all, remember that there are about 300.000 people playing this game at the moment. Further, note most of the active users on this forum, are part of the more passionate group of players. So the fact that you read that one person was able to beat the game with one character, is not really supprising, and wouldn't be supprising even if it was one of the most difficult games around. Beyond that, even though I'm a veteran of this type of game, I actually found the game fairly challenging and satisfying on hard difficulty on my first non-completionary playthrough. I remember many encounters where I had to reload, or try out new tactics. And every time I just put it on auto attack, the game would punish me, and my dudes would either die, or only one or two out of six would survive, putting pressure on my resourse management. This may be because I'm a lobotomized idiot, or it may be because I played the game more casually than most players in here. I didn't do a lot of work to figure out the deep technical aspect of the game mechanics, and had a more intuitive approach. Further, the game punishes the completionist severely in the sense that if you try to complete all quests, you become overpowered very quickly with regards to the main questline, due to the game encounters are balanced. I'm not going to elaborate this point, but if you decide to try the game, I recommend you kind of let the game/story take you by the hand, and complete it in it's own pace, instead of actively going around trying to find all the quests, all the items etc.

No spoiler: In the PoE world, Dragons are highly intelligent, just like in Forgotten Realms (Or I guess Tolkien would be the appropriate reference here). They get smarter with age. Drakes on the other hand, though they are in a sense the same species*, only have primate/retarted_human intelligence. *or are they technically? Any dragonbiologists present? Drakes turn into Dragons if circumstance allows, but are Drakes technically just an adolescent Dragon, or are they a completely different species?

There's nothing absurd in the notion that more choice doesn't necessarily = better, as has been argued several times in this thread. It's the same thing as with the narrow doorways. It's just an option to block the corridor with your tank, but the fact that it's clearly the optimal strategy, makes not taking advantage of it, the same as deliberately gimping oneself. The same can be argued with regards to pre-buffing.

No. There's no trade off at all. I only have one tankish character being Eder. Durance really isn't a tank and Sagani's fox is only there to initially stop the enemy from coming through at the start of the encounter. Once the fox went down, the enemy immediately went to either Eder or Durance. The A.I. isn't smart enough to run through to my squishies. The only enemy smart enough to do that is the Fampyr who's already dead. And any enemies going for Durance is being targeted by my squishies with Eder tanking the others. Also, if you've seen my screenshots and video of drakes in the EI mod thread, you'll know the A.I. often ignores your squishies, to the point of drakes flying though your back line and ignoring them to get to your tank. Well, you must have equipped Durance for somekind of tanking role before the encounter and thus forgo some of his caster capabilities, else he'd be a squishie himself. And that's a trade off. But I concede your point nonetheless, and agree that the AI is needs to be better equipped/programmed to put your squishies in danger. And that video is just screwy, but I imagine their behaviour is to reflect the lore that Drakes are close to primate intelligence. They are dumb.

Not to go Dr. Phill and all, but that's actually how willpower works in the real world. If there is nothing to tempt you, then there is no temptation to overcome. And thus some people prefer if the devs simply removed them from the game in order not to kill their own enjoyment***. Adding an option for unlimited rest, also unbalances the game extremly in favour of Wizard, Priest and Druid, making them overpowered relative to the other classes, so it's going to change the whole game experience to some extent.

Simplification? We asked for a game like the old RPG's which allowed you to rest anytime(not saying it was perfect, but its a million times better than this bad POE bad design). This isn't simplification, this is just unnecessary unfun timesink forced on people needlessly. Not asking to remove it for everybody, just an option to turn it off for people who find it unfun and breaks the fun of the game. How does the option hurt anybody in a singleplayer game? Love the resting system + resource management, and I havn't been compelled to go back to the inn/castle since I just started learning the ropes. And whether it's bad design or not, really comes down whether the majority are using the resting system as intended i.e. by relying on their camping resources. So if people are backtracking like crazy, then it failed. If it's only a couple malcontents, then it's just too bad for them. That being said, I wouldn't mind if they included some further 'training wheels' difficulty setting for stuff like this, as long as the game still remains designed and balanced with tight resource-management in mind.

@OP This may be entirely obvious to you and others, but I was too lost in all the stats and talents at my first playthrough to notice: Remember to check out the character's "weapons focus" talent to get most bang for your buck. Most of the companions have this talent per default, and the +6 boost to accuracy is very helpful in the early parts of the game. So use it to refer to it when sorting out what weapons to equip.

Not to mention the pre-release "The media got a copy a couple of days before the backers, so I'm never supporting Obsidian again" storm in a teacup

You think free invisible instant attack with no animation that can occur at the same time as a character is physically attacking a different unit or in the middle of an attack animation/casting a spell/doing something else as long as they have a melee weapon equipped is realistic? Or that if you attack somebody they always have to stop and attack you? Clearly he/she is referring to the principle of the matter, not the graphical representation itself.

But there's a significant trade off here since you are forced to commit three characters to the front line. And one of them (the wolf/fox/whatever) is almost dead already because of it. As soon as it's dead, there'll be an autobahn straight to your squishies. Further, it only works in this case because you have three tank(ish) characters, but that's a further tactical dispositionwhich won't payoff in all encounters. So I don't really see why this is a problem here, unless you don't think you should be able to use the environment to augment your tactics at all. I agree that there are too many narrow dorways which can often be blocked by one character. And in that case, it's a no-brainer to fill that hole with Eder, and let everyone else just fire away from a distance. They could remedy this by introducing some small probability of friendly fire from ranged weapons and e.g. make the gunpowder weapons less accurate/more dangerous to allies, compared to (x)bows, which would in turn make bows much more viable.

Not at all. The fact that it's a fantasy setting just means that we make certain assumptions going in about the state of the world. E.g. it's like earth, but in the late middle ages, with magic, and dragons etc. But that doesn't mean that everything goes, or that everything fits the setting. E.g. if one of the NPC's were a mid 1990's gangster rapper, in a lowrider, wielding an UZI, you'd hope to christ that there was some really really good explanation as to how the heck he'd fit into this setting. 'Else it would just break the settin, and the immersion. But of course, a lot of stuff is going to be a departure from realism in the persuit of fun, like the lack of weight encumbrance. But if it doesn't clash with the fun, and it's not difficult or impossible to implement, the devs should strive for realism (winthin the setting). And semi-realistic drops like this is a step in the right direction for some people, even if carrying all that stuff around isn't. Further, whether they drop full equipment or not, doesn't have to have anything to do with the economy in principle. That's simply an issue with a lack of balancing the economy. If they lowered the prices somewhat, there wouldn't be an issue. I've just reached act 3, been fairly completionist, and I only have around 9K left. So so far it's not even an issue.

That doesn't make much sense either as game time does not flow at the same rate as real time over here. Not sure how long a day-night cycle takes, but it's a LOT less than 27 real-time hours. More like an hour maybe? Not talking about real-time vs. game time. I just meant that Eora has the earth equivalent of a 27 hour day, i.e. three more real earth hours.

I always just assumed the Eora day night cycle was a couple of hours longer in earth hours, and that the Eorans themselves didn't necessarily use the same division. But does the lore reflect that the Eorans themsevles refer to it as a 27 hour day? Beyond that, the particular division used could simply be a consession to the reader, like english is.

Yup, love the full junk drops. Just give me a way of sorting my junk further and a select all function.

Also make sure that in the sequels, there's a little - idunno - sulfur-crisis or something, so I don't have to see anymore guns. Or make the sequels prequels a couple of hondo years in the past, so those crappy symbols of modernity can disapear.

Ah, but then we come to two points: 1. Monte Carlo was summing up what his argument in this thread has been, not a reply to anyone in particular, and there have been people making the argument that it should be removed because it offends, not why it offends but simply that it does, and so his point has merit. 2. If someone is justified in being offended does that automatically mean that it was wrong? Comedians often take the mock out of religion and creed, and quite often those groups they mock are offended, does that mean Comedians should not mock them? Calling someone's religion stupid and moronic is going to justifiable offend that person but does mean they get the right to censure you saying that? Just because someone IS justifiable offended doesn't mean they have the right to censure you. And who gets to decide that something is justifiably offensive or not? To whose standards? Where is the line between taking the piss and being nasty? And which groups get protection and which don't? I ain't gonna answer these questions, personally I'm thinking I need to step away from this thread very very carefully and think everyone else should too because no good can come from it, but damnit I do love playing with fire... 1. If someone made the point that it should be removed simply because it offends, in a way that isn't just shorthand for what I suggested above, then he/she does have merit. 2. That of course depends on what we mean by "justified" here, and "should not mock them". If we by justified mean that it's objectively morally wrong, then yeah, then there is a moral obligation not to mock them. Obviously the interesting discussion then becomes whether something is objectively morally wrong. However, that does not mean that it should be illegal to mock them, but only because such a law would be very difficult to implement, and would presumably lead to extreme abuse.

Damn it, I left that ****hole years ago, don't tell me it's expanding over here? The games are still decently written right? They've not turned into sex-simulators yet have they? Sorry to butcher your quote like this, but I just wanted to highlight and discuss this notion which has been thrown around on this site a lot lately. However, it just seem counterintuitive to me, depending on what is actually meant here. So, do you (and/or others) mean: 1) the fact that someone is offended, doens't automatically mean that someone has done something wrong in offending them. 2) it is never wrong to offend other people. 3) something else If 1), then that's not really all that relevant, because you'd have a hard time finding anyone who disagrees with it. And 2), simply can't be true. The reason 1) doesn't apply, is that those who are offended, aren't (in their mind) offended just because. They are offended because of something, namely that they consider the rhyme wrong, presumably because they consider it damaging to a cause they consider morally worthy (sexual equality, or something in that regard). Now we can argue whether it is in fact a worthy cause, or whether the rhyme is indeed damaging to this cause. And even if we accept both, we can still argue wether the fact that it is harmful is enough to justify removing the limerick. But to invoke something like the quoted text, just seems like a belittling strawman*. *depending on what 3) could mean Time to nuke this site from orbit... So, let me ask you a question! Should cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed be censored because it causes offence? Many people of the Muslim faith find this offensive, they aren't offended just because right? Do they, as a religious group, have a right to not be offended by other people? What about Christians who are offended by homosexuality? Do they have a right not to be offended by gay people? While you answer that, let me just go grab something... *Legs it to his nuclear bomb shelter, where he sits peeking out* See, the point is that I can without contradiction believe that it's ok to draw the Prophet Mohammed, while simultainsly believing that removing the Rhyme was wrong. It comes down to who has the worthy cause. If I - hypothetically - believe that religion is a great cause of badness in the world, while - hypothetically - believing that gender equality is a big cause of goodness, then this may be the case. My point was just that stating something like "no ones has a magical right not be offended" doesn't address the issue at all, and only helps to muddy the issue. We should be discussing whether they were justified in being offended or not.

Sorry to butcher your quote like this, but I just wanted to highlight and discuss this notion which has been thrown around on this site a lot lately. However, it just seem counterintuitive to me, depending on what is actually meant here. So, do you (and/or others) mean: 1) the fact that someone is offended, doens't automatically mean that someone has done something wrong in offending them. 2) it is never wrong to offend other people. 3) something else If 1), then that's not really all that relevant, because you'd have a hard time finding anyone who disagrees with it. And 2), simply can't be true. The reason 1) doesn't apply, is that those who are offended, aren't (in their mind) offended just because. They are offended because of something, namely that they consider the rhyme wrong, presumably because they consider it damaging to a cause they consider morally worthy (sexual equality, or something in that regard). Now we can argue whether it is in fact a worthy cause, or whether the rhyme is indeed damaging to this cause. And even if we accept both, we can still argue wether the fact that it is harmful is enough to justify removing the limerick. But to invoke something like the quoted text, just seems like a belittling strawman*. *depending on what 3) could mean