Fiery Rain

Someone needs to ask Josh about this adra regeneration in order to explain/avoid potential plothole. Although it's perfectly possible adra has become PoE's "Nanomachines, son!", so any explanation could be handwaved this way. "It's adra! Who knows what it's capable of!" Also, a little bit of trivia: Josh has said Maros's statue is roughly the size of Waldorf Astoria Chicago, i.e. 209 m. https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/764267162856894465

OK, let's try. 1. How have we been at communicating with you guys? Can't really say actually, haven't followed the beta feedback forums that much (or forums at all, for that matter), but on a cursory glance, well, communication have been pretty good. It did, however, have some hiccups here and there (already mentioned radio silence and so on), so as they say, it could be even better! 2. What did you like about us? Basically, your openness about game mechanics. Josh Sawyer is a big part of that - he never talks in marketing terms ("trust us, it is already awesome and will be even more awesome, don't you worry!"), only concrete and hard facts. 3. What kind of things would you like to see us improve on? The question isn't specified enough. ;-) But I guess when it comes to future projects, you could improve by having more designers on your forums, talking to users about design, decisions and suggestions. 4. What would you like to hear from us in the future? New projects' sneak peeks, teaser trailers, mystery screenshots, Eder's exclusive twitter account... all the usual stuff. 5. Additional thoughts? This should actually go to PoE 2 Wishlist, but I think you guys are reading this thread anyway (and it IS "additional thoughts", indeed!), so here goes: Potential sequel could benefit from more quest-content, I think. Right now quests are very short when it comes to their mechanism and not really involving per se - basically player goes there, does that, and that's that. Two-three-step process, without much mental work or player experimentation. Make player search for potential solutions, make unusual solutions, make player think outside of the box, instead of simply following the journal. "The Final Act" quest is a good example of typical PoE quest - instead of gathering the clues, guesswork, stealthwork and thinking, you basically go to A, B, C points (conveniently specified in the journal), get X, Y, Z information and then go to the Omega point and then everything is solved. TWM improved on these aspects (with puzzles, for example), but there's still a wide room for improvement. Fallout 2 could be a good example, I think, when it comes to quest design and handholding: the game mostly tells you what you need to do, but rarely how. And no, Expert Mode is not really an answer to that! Also factions too could benefit from this for exactly same reason: in PoE, their arcs are too short and simple. Two quests per faction and only one batch of mutually exclusive and simple quests (follow the journal and everything will basically solve itself). I think Fallout: New Vegas is a great example of faction design. Two games, and each of them (well, F2 to an extent) is made by you guys - so go wild! Combat: What is the hardest fight you had in the game? I'm currently replaying game (on Hard, I'm not hardcore enough, keep that in mind) to refresh my memory, but I think the hardest fight in a *good* way was Radiant Spore. It is, I think, the right kind of hard - instead of simply pumping stats through the roof like with dragons and make them one-shot anything and everything, it forces player to adapt and invent a strategy. PoE on the whole is sadly lacking these kind of battles, so this fight really stands out. I think PoE 2 should strive to include more fights like that. Least favorite fights? Basically, any fight which turns the screen in a chaotic mess so it's up to you to systemate this chaos properly. It's a combat pace problem, so yeah. Apart from that, I guess... it would be Kaoto fight. It combines the wrong kind of hard (stats through the stars) and chaotic, quick, messy pace. If the PoE combat was slower, I guess it would have been more enjoyable, but as it stands, you simply don't even have enough time to react. The setup of the fight actually is not too bad, but thanks to the quick tempo... yeah, you can guess. N.B. It seems that Tyranny actually have a much clearer fights (at a glance, at least). I think it's because of: a) larger sprites, b) sharp and hard FX feedback, c) slower tempo. I don't know if that's really the case (you have to play the game, I guess), but if so, well, that's a good sign for PoE 2. Do you feel that there were any boss fights that were to overwhelming or underwhelming? Kraken, for obvious reasons. And Thaos, for the reasons AndreaColombo mentioned. Really guys, you have FOUR easy difficulties, at least make PotD AND upscaled Thaos formidable enough! The upscale option is there for a reason! If someone plays PotD and enables upscale, well, I think it's because this someone wants as much challenge as he/she can get. I also think Thaos is not too strong simply because he's a Priest... N.B. Now that I think about it... if optional level-scaling changed enemy encounter composition based on a level, not only difficulty, would that be good or bad? BUGS BUGS BUGS Mostly stronghold-related. 1. Crowd sounds remain when you complete Gathbin quests. 2. The companion barks regarding fortress progress should activate only once (or at least, you should severely reduce their frequency). "Better, indeed". "Better, indeed". "Better, indeed". Gellarde! 3. Regarding stronghold dilemmas. If Watcher decides to, for example, convince a thief to surrender herself, she really SHOULD NOT happily return in a randomly fashion just a few days after. If someone is exiled, he/she should stay exiled. If someone is imprisoned/perished - well... So yeah, I think that's that. EDIT: Good idea, I think. I recently tried a Druid character and also figured this could be done. It's distinctive enough and not gamebreaking in the least, for it to be limited by per-rest. However, I don't really want more balance changes, because I really don't want new bugs to be uncovered. ;-) And BTW, yeah, forgot to mention Sking and Aarik. You guys rock, keep it up!

BTW, I'd also like to reiterate issue already mentioned by someone in this thread. If running two instances of a game causes saves to corrupt and progress to reset, you should definitely try to include some fail-safe mechanism to prevent that from happening. "The game is already running" message or something. Losing progress just because Steam froze momentarily and you clicked the second time to "Play", or accidentally pressed Enter several times... well, yeah.

Yeah, I too would suggest that you guys just focus on bugfixing. New features and rebalancing inevitably will bring new bugs, and I doubt someone would want that. I'd like to report one bug that started to occur since 3.03. No one else reported it - at least I never saw it - so I suppose this is difficult to reproduce and very situational, but still: - After you start a new game and quickload and any point, it's possible that, upon reload, the message "You have successfully installed White March" will appear. You click "Okay", it disappears, but after any reload of any save, it will appear again. And again. I don't know if this is harmless, since it's the new game: who knows, maybe this resets add-on progress or something, maybe not, but it's hardly the most pleasant thought. The only workaround I have found - Immediately after new game begins, quicksave and then quickload. The message may disappear; if not, try to load autosave created at the start. If not, alternate between loading these two until it happens. So far it worked, I suppose, somewhat stubbornly, but worked. But I don't know if it will appear again in the future, nor do I know what to do in such a case. More importantly, if this message indeed resets the addon or something, I don't know if this fixes it altogether or just stops spawning the message while resetting the progress just the same. And if you can, look into this Chanter Rime traps bug littering the save file, please.

I believe the OP problem is: You first stumble upon these robbers in Copperlane deserted house. After a fight, you find a letter. Now you can show it to Doemenel and he will send you to complete the job. But if you, for some reason, instead of showing it to him, decide to just ask about hearing, he sends you to find the letter which you already have. This breaks the quest altogether, so you can't complete the quest via normal means nor you can just show the letter to Doemenel or Lord Reymont to workaround it. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I should probably add that I would welcome if someone else shared their experiences with dilemmas in this thread, be it positive or negative. As far as I remember, before the stronghold improvements came, it was a popular topic around here that stronghold should be reactive and many players often talked about possible dilemmas in BG2. So I think now is the perfect time to share the experiences. The reason for this is simple - the game is still receiving patches and still can (although not very likely, granted, but it's better than nothing) possibly improve these aspects. When the patching stops, everything will be set in stone and any complaints (and there will be complaints) will most likely be ignored. So if you have any gripes, it's probably better to state them now.

Okay, I reposted this in General Feedback. Thanks Aarik!

First off, dilemmas are very cool addition to your stronghold, so thank you guys for including them. They manage to strike a good balance between being fairly weighty and flavour-y at the same time. Although sometimes your character's possible responses lack necessary nuance and come off as a little thick-headed and childish (local cruel lord comes to ask you for advice - your character gets to respond basically this: "YOU ARE EVIL, EVIL MAN!!! GUARDS SEIZE HIM!!!"), it's all good for the most part. However, these dilemmas appear to lack... let's say finishing touches when it comes to showing possible results and a result, when this happens, they feel underdeveloped. Let me give you a few examples. Let's start with the local drunkard dilemma. He asks you to help him with his money problems and you can suggest him to work for Bellasege. He thanks and leaves. But when you visit Sanitarium in Brackenbury to check on him - he isn't there and Bellasege bark strings are unchanged, so your choice is effectively ignored. It would be enough to simply move his model to the sanitarium and assign a simple bark string for him to make this choice matter. Because, if the game forgets right away about your choice, what's the point then? And I know it all can be justified and excused - he simply forgot, he got lost on the way, he changed his mind and returned home and so on and so on. But that's not the point. After all, when you save a girl in Heritage Hill from guls, she does not disappear, but instead shows in Crucible Knights' Keep with a bark string. Simple, but effective. Second, and perhaps more perplexing, is the Nyry the Deft Hand dilemma. She shows up in Caed Nua and asks you to help her "disappear". One option can allow you to pay her 1000 coppers for her to disappear from Dyrwood altogether. She thanks, says she's in your debt and leaves. But almost immediately, random algorithms trigger and make her appear again, this time simply as a "bad visitor", just like before. So not only your choice is rendered meaningless, you just effectively wasted 1000 coppers on hot air. I mean, what is this? You invested resources and in exchange, get basically nothing? Essentially, you could just say "Sorry, couldn't help you with that" and get the same result, only without money-wasting. What's the point of this option then? So guys, I think if you started something, you should take another step as well, so to speak. These half-measures aren't helpful. Remember Chekhov's rule! In short: The game gives you multiple choices when it comes to visitor dilemmas, but then for the most part forgets to show results of your selected choice, even when it's perfectly possible, instead acting as if you never made them in the first place and rendering the whole process fairly superficial.

Perhaps I'll repost this thread in General Discussion for more players to share their experiences, I don't know. But okay, let's start. First off, dilemmas are very cool addition to your stronghold, so thank you guys for including them. They manage to strike a good balance between being fairly weighty and flavour-y at the same time. Although sometimes your character's possible responses lack necessary nuance and come off as a little thick-headed and childish (local cruel lord comes to ask you for advice - your character gets to respond basically this: "YOU ARE EVIL, EVIL MAN!!! GUARDS SEIZE HIM!!!"), it's all good for the most part. However, these dilemmas appear to lack... let's say finishing touches when it comes to showing possible results and a result, when this happens, they feel underdeveloped. Let me give you a few examples. Let's start with the local drunkard dilemma. He asks you to help him with his money problems and you can suggest him to work for Bellasege. He thanks and leaves. But when you visit Sanitarium in Brackenbury to check on him - he isn't there and Bellasege bark strings are unchanged, so your choice is effectively ignored. It would be enough to simply move his model to the sanitarium and assign a simple bark string for him to make this choice matter. Because, if the game forgets right away about your choice, what's the point then? And I know it all can be justified and excused - he simply forgot, he got lost on the way, he changed his mind and returned home and so on and so on. But that's not the point. After all, when you save a girl in Heritage Hill from guls, she does not disappear, but instead shows in Crucible Knights' Keep with a bark string. Simple, but effective. Second, and perhaps more perplexing, is the Nyry the Deft Hand dilemma. She shows up in Caed Nua and asks you to help her "disappear". One option can allow you to pay her 1000 coppers for her to disappear from Dyrwood altogether. She thanks, says she's in your debt and leaves. But almost immediately, random algorithms trigger and make her appear again, this time simply as a "bad visitor", just like before. So not only your choice is rendered meaningless, you just effectively wasted 1000 coppers on hot air. I mean, what is this? You invested resources and in exchange, get basically nothing? Essentially, you could just say "Sorry, couldn't help you with that" and get the same result, only without money-wasting. What's the point of this option then? So guys, I think if you started something, you should take another step as well, so to speak. These half-measures aren't helpful. Remember Chekhov's rule! In short: The game gives you multiple choices when it comes to visitor dilemmas, but then for the most part forgets to show results of your selected choice, even when it's perfectly possible, instead acting as if you never made them in the first place and rendering the whole process fairly superficial.

First, the line on the screenshot. It's supposed to appear when you encounter vithracks in the Endless Paths the first time and serves as an "introduction" to them, I guess. But since encounters have been revised, now you encounter vithracks a few floors earlier and doesn't make much sense, since you already seen them. Second line in the Maneha's quest. After a dream, she tells you "You told me about your Awakening". But thing is, I never did. Nor is there an option to do so in her dialogue. Maybe there is an event where it's possible, I don't know. Or maybe it's some sort of suspension of disbelief, some sort of hand wave? "Well, your character DID tell her about it, you just never saw it personally"?

The line on the screenshot is supposed to be Lord Whathisname's, and not Chancellor's, I believe.

This animat here keeps respawning over and over again each time I load a save game. Maybe there are other enemies which do the same, I don't know (but so far I haven't noticed).

Very cool! Have you done any optimisation passes, guys, perchance? I think my game is running more smoothly than before.

Update: It seems in new beta patch this bug has been fixed (hopefully). Thanks guys and Aarik in particular, keep it up!

It is surprisingly hard to come with good name in that relative short time that you have when you get notice that you need to sent it in. Especially when when developers haven't released much of information about world or its lore in that point of time. Some backers did have conversations with Josh about lore and names used in Eora, but not all. I would guess that there would had been more setting fitting names if Obsidian had released general naming guide for Eora that backers could had looked before they sent their NPCs in. I didn't do any backer content for PoE, but I did do them in InXile's Torment: Tides of Numenera, and I had quite hard time to come up with good name for my content even though I have setting book in my hand and I have played Numenera as table top rpg. Luckily for people that will play that game I got some help from its developers, so my content isn't as awful as it would had been without their input. Leaving aside dubious "oh it's very hard to do so" argument... Guys from Obsidian had to approve these names, or else they wouldn't appear in-game in their current state. I doubt it was very hard to say "Dear backer, this name isn't really fitting with game lore, would you mind if we change submitted name of your NPC to something more adequate while keeping it similar, like this, for example?". Kickstarter page specifically said submitted names has to be "within reason". But whatever, I guess. Reaping what we sow and all.