RedSocialKnight

Yeah. Slightly irritating. I discovered this while bumbling my way through Noonfrost where every single damn room has a wizard who starts off fights with Confusion. You can dominate your own guys back into the party, but this is treated as an attack rather than a remedy and they may resist it.

They did cut another major area from Twin Elms -- a forest cemetery that would have been accessed through the archway next to the Golden Grove. More would be nice of course, but I'm happy enough with the size of the game as shipped. And I hardly think this counts as Molyneux-level overpromising

There are so many little ways that combat could be made visually clearer. Half the time I hit the space bar not to issue commands, but just to figure out what the hell is going on. I (ahem) also made a thread with a number of suggested quality of life fixes to make combat a little easier to keep track of.

I started Act 3 at level 7. This wasn't really crit-path: I was doing any story-related subquests I ran into, but I didn't do any bounties or explore the Endless Paths.

Where are my peanuts?

Here again is the quote from Feargus Urquhart

I find the "no engagement" part of the mod very strange. I understand why Sensuki dislikes it, although I disagree. But, engagement is a really central part of how combat is designed in PoE. Remove engagement and it seems to me you're just sort of left with a scrum.

I don't want time limits as such, especially not on plot-central quests. Having to restart Fallout 1 didn't feel immersive, it just felt irritating But I do favor what I call a "quest clock" that would make the choice of which subquests to complete an important one. Under this system, "time" would elapse in the game world after you complete a given number of quests. For example, you're helping a village prepare for attack, and there are a number of ways to do this. Get the old folks to the church or get weapons for the militia etc etc. There might be ten available subquests related to the main quest. You have to complete five of them to progress, but once you've chosen those five, "time's up" -- the village gets attacked, and the subquests you haven't done become unavailable. This adds meaning and urgency to the choices you make -- you won't want to be doing some trivial FedEx quest right before the village burns. But it doesn't impose an annoying real-time countdown that doesn't really make sense in terms of how time passes within the game.

Huh. I guess I must be crit-pathing, although it hasn't felt like I am. I was level 7 at the start of Act 3 -- that's with all companions and with all major subquests I was aware of but no bounties and very little of the Endless Path. In fact I felt under-leveled. I had to tiptoe past the ogres on the wat to Twin Elms because I wasn't able to take them on at that point.

Positioning your line of engagement to facilitate AoEs is the bread and butter of how this combat system works. That said, if you don't want to be bothered, there are a number of foe-only spells that hit multiple targets, so you may just want to focus on them -- myself, I shamelessly abuse Mind Blades at the start of every fight.

Here again is the quote from Feargus Urquhart

In another thread Justin Bell agreed that this was planned but cut for time. I had planned to write one that expanded on the kickstater campaign music, but we ran out of time. Maybe in the future....... I almost want to start a mini sub-kickstarter just to get this added to the game for a future patch.

One friend who disliked Origins liked DA2 a lot better -- but that's because he doesn't really enjoy rpgs and preferred the streamlined, more action-y style. That said, it's certainly worth trying and has some features -- like the dual friendship/rivalry system -- I wish had been carried over into Inquisition. For someone who did like Origins, there's no denying that the reduced scope and ambition of the second game came as a disappointment. I'm glad the fan backlash was strong as it was because it got us the bigger budget and development time for Inquisition. The focus on a single location over an extended period of time was an interesting and creative way of dealing with the development's limited resources -- but it wasn't enough to stop the game having a slapdash, cut-n-paste feel. And certain aspects of the writing (that ending -- yeah **** you too, Gaider) were simply misjudgments separate from any financial or time constraint. But play it. Dragon Age isn't perfect, but it's the AAA attempt to do the same thing PoE tries to do on an indie level. Anyone who enjoyed the old Bioware should at least know what the new Bioware is up to.

If the squabble doesn't continue, I'll have no reason to repost the quote.

Here again is the topic quote from Feargus Urquhart.

It's just occurred to me that my username must come across in this context as some sort of "social justice warrior" self-identification. It is in fact from a fan translation of a 90s Fire Emblem game.

It's like ... meta-trolling. 11/10. Of course I knew the quarrel would continue. That's not my goal, but I accept it as inevitable. I just think it's better for the quarrel to continue in the context of someone with actual knowledge saying something reasonable, rather than letting it create a closed echo chamber.

Here again is the topic quote from Feargus Urquhart.

Here again is the topic quote from Feargus Urquhart.

Oh God, what have I created? Mods please lock this thread.

Huh ... what about isometric Alpha Protocol? Would that be something that could make sense?

PoE's magic system in general makes a lot more sense than D&D's, especially behind the scenes. But what's behind the scenes doesn't alway translate very clearly to the player. And I think OP was talking about the specific design of this one spell in the Baldur's Gate games, which really was a standout. Providing clear visual cues to the player is something that PoE struggles with in a number of areas -- for example the engagement system was completely bewildering for most of the Beta, and it's central to how combat works. Luckily that one was clarified before release, but this is an issue Obsidian would be smart to work on.

The quote is clearer at the source -- I copied it from a longer article that provides context.

The "Minoletta's X Missile" series. It's a nice homage to the D&D spell, but OP is right that the visual and mechanical scaling up of Magic Missle in BG from its humble origins to a deadly barrage was an elegant design and felt badass. After a levelup, I was always super excited to cast it again and see how it looked with one more missile added.

I haven't yet encountered this myself, but I understand that at one point . I imagine that at least clarifies the question a bit even if you don't get a final answer.