Theedarkcorner

Rangers can be very powerful. Go with the stalker subclass. Note that you don't need more than 10 perception because they have tones of accuracy buffs. I'd also go with 3 res and 7 con if you're staying in the back. Pair it with a class that can buff your companion, such as a Paladin.

I had a lot of fun using the Tall Grass pike in PoE (https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Tall_Grass), building a barbarian for max crit potential and watching groups of enemies knocked prone for the whole fight. I'm hoping I can do something similar in Deadfire. What controlling weapons have you found so far?

My computer "helpfully" reminded me that tomorrow (technically today, now) is the release date. I've been watching the clock ever since.

Unfortunately, I don't have a twitter account, but that's good to know! I'll check out his feed at least.

The most important part of POE II for me is the music, and since the audio stretch goal was met last February 2017, i.e. a year ago, it seems fitting we should hear some new music this month! What do you guys think? So, if you see this, Justin Bell, when can I hear some new tunes? Please and thanks!

That looks soooo pretty. It also gives me an idea. If fog of war/view blocking is being implemented then perhaps characters can peak through keyholes, when close enough, to see into the next room. I loved comical moments in BG2 when I'd open a door, see hords of monsters running at me, then close it again. But moments like that require having your party be the only ones that can move through doors, which can be used as a really cheap tactic. Advantages to "sometimes" being able to peak through keyholes: - level designers can garauntee players get to scout out certain areas where the need to scout might not have been obvious, such as boss battles, to give players a chance to prepare themselves - can allow players to witness scenes that would have otherwise been interrupted by the player's presence - can create an unsettling moment when the player opens a door and sees evidence that someone, or something, was spying on them through the keyhole

I usually went for "core" settings, especially when the games were based on D&D. And no, visceral gameplay of the kind I think you mean here is not my cup of a tea. Still, I'm surprised you'd rather watch that combat log than enjoy the game. Those games weren't that difficult, especially if you had a solid PnP background. Certainly no need to let that little window take over your gaming experience, but to each their own, I guess. I recall, although not so fondly, mates that were all about rules and stats, and they min-maxed as much as they could. Unfortunately, that didn't translate into RPG- characters the way C2B explained in his post. Rather, the opposite, I'm afraid. Still, some of those guys were fun to hang out with anyways. There's all kinds of players, for better or worse. Obsidian can't control that. But, they can support these different preferences which is why a good overall package is important. True, the way the game is played will vary from person to person. Some will play in real time, others turn based. Some people will watch the combat log while others won't. As long as they enjoy it, there's really no reason to deny their play style. Personally, in any serious fight I'll be playing turn based while watching the combat log intently. There are, what, 54 spells and 56 unique abilities already? Even if they were to create unique graphics for each one, I don't know anyone who could keep track of them all. If a mage casts a spell that makes them immune to magical weapons, then watching the combat log is the fastest way to find out because it tells you right when the mage starts casting it. You could then take measures to dispell it, or equip your melee fighters with non-magical weapons before the spell even has a chance to be useful. I find it fun and empowering.

In that particular screen shot you can see more of the south corridor, yes, but what if there were more corridors to the South West and North East? If you stack up those UI elements in the U-shaped interface then you'll find that it covers more of the screen than the original. Plus, there's a lot of empty space needing to be filled with buttons to be useful. If we're talking BG buttons, then a lot of them only need to be on-screen temporarily. The problem with the U-shape is that it maximizes the distance between buttons. When these buttons need to be used frequently, the user will constantly be moving their mouse from the left side of the screen to click a button, then to the right side to click another button. This is a lot of mouse movement and will be tiring in long gaming sessions. Imagine exchanging books between two book shelves on opposite sides of a 20x20' room by taking one book off the shelf at a time. It wasn't very noticeable in BG's low resolutions but it will definitely be annoying on a high resolution widescreen. With regards to total space; it depends on whether the screen will stay centered on the party or selected party member, in which case it will scroll, so the right and left sides will always emerge as the player moves. If they decide to go another route, you're right, but usually space in the middle of the screen is at a premium. With regards to the second point; the U-shaped layout I included has all of the most used buttons along wth the portraits. the only buttons opposite would be for less used functions likes formations, settings, etc. That is getting into the finer points of UI design. There is no reason that all the important buttons couldn't remain close to the portraits in this type of layout. Also, clicking portraits, in reality, will likely be the least used manner in which players will interface with the characters on screen. Most of the time they will click on the character model or hotkey the number. But regardless, a U-shaped frame UI can be nearly as efficient as one running along the bottom. Maybe moreso when you consider that clicking on some buttons might result in pop-up sub-menus; which in the U-shape (or right justified) would be along the side of the screen and not in the middle where a bottom justified UI would have them, further impeding vision. Hotkeys are very useful, and players will make use of them the more familiar with the game they get, but until then nubs will be using their mouse. Otherwise, why would we have buttons at all? If all that matters is screen real estate then they should do away with interfaces, keep a minimalistic HUD and create simplistic, easy to remember controls. Like you said, all the important buttons can fit on one side. Why do we need another side at all? Why not have a single, vertical menu, then? You would have the exact same amount of screen space if you merged the left side of the U-shaped interface with the right, and even more if you removed the empty part of the interface at the bottom of the screen. The dialogue box obviously wouldn't be able to fit in it, but it could be collapsed at the bottom center of the screen, and any popup menus would be along the side, still.

In that particular screen shot you can see more of the south corridor, yes, but what if there were more corridors to the South West and North East? If you stack up those UI elements in the U-shaped interface then you'll find that it covers more of the screen than the original. Plus, there's a lot of empty space needing to be filled with buttons to be useful. If we're talking BG buttons, then a lot of them only need to be on-screen temporarily. The problem with the U-shape is that it maximizes the distance between buttons. When these buttons need to be used frequently, the user will constantly be moving their mouse from the left side of the screen to click a button, then to the right side to click another button. This is a lot of mouse movement and will be tiring in long gaming sessions. Imagine exchanging books between two book shelves on opposite sides of a 20x20' room by taking one book off the shelf at a time. It wasn't very noticeable in BG's low resolutions but it will definitely be annoying on a high resolution widescreen.

This is by far the best "user" redesign. All the other user redesigns suffer from: - small, indistinguishable buttons (little circular buttons aren't fun to press, nor are they big enough to contain their own graphics) - buttons are spread out too far (The one where you have to click a portrait on the right and drag you mouse all the way to the left to select actions is ridiculous! Try doing that for every individual character every 5 seconds and see how you like it.) - Take up way to much space - the circular ui elements create wasted space, even if you can see the game screen in that space it obscures is and isn't easily clickable - padding might make it harder to misclick, but slightly larger buttons serve the same purpose without wasting space For everyone who wants Baldur's Gate's UI, saying it's part of the experience. I implore you to replay it! I'm currently replaying BG2 and am genuinely frustrated by: - the lack of a back button in the skill selector - the inability to tell whether Yoshimo is checking for traps or not - being forced to enlarge the dialogue box to see who's attacks are effective at the expense of covering up the beautiful combat animations - the really, really small buttons for 'party ai', 'select all party members' and the expand/collapse buttons for portraits, menus and dialogue - mouse scroll only focusing on the first scrollable element - tooltips covering buttons - the difficult to find loot from falling corpses (possibly fixed in the Enhanced Edition but I've got the original) - the inability to tell whether a buffing spell needs a target without hovering the mouse over a character or portrait (or from memory) - inventory management between teammates while only knowing what's in one party member's inventory at a time - I'm sure everyone has unloaded the main character's inventory on a party member, reentered the game only to find out that they're encumbered when you've already moved your party to a new, potentially hostile location - moving my cursor from a portrait to a mage spell book to a portrait to a priest spell book (yes, you can use hotkeys but first you have to memorize them, and using hotkeys isn't always convenient) - having The PE artist designed ui is actually a step in the right direction! Everything is a short mouse distance away, the game screen is quite visible and it's got everything you need without UI bloat. The only things I would change are: - increase the size of the small buttons - remove the padding on either side of the UI Like so: