RedSocialKnight

Any game that tries to systematize personality is going to be simplistic and reductive to some extent, so it's inevitable that players will sometimes take issue with how actions are categorized by the game. There was a guy a few days ago complaining because "Clever" means "shallow and sarcastic" in the game rather than "smart". But even though I'm not surprised, I'm still annoyed to run into the same thing myself. Here's my first real beef: I've planned to make my Cipher's primary trait "Rational" with sidelines in "Diplomatic" and "Honest" -- he's supposed to be a clear-sighted, plain-spoken guy who cuts through the bull**** and finds a solution that makes sense. Well, here I am in The Salty Mast, and the "Rational" dialogue option is to say that I'll help the madam, but only for cash. Apparently it's rational means to be greedy all of a sudden. Why? I have no need of the money, but I could certainly use a friendly connection with knowledge of Defiance Bay's underworld. Why am I in an Ayn Rand universe where small-minded selfishness is the path of reason?

Seriously there is a hate thread about one of the game's signature features which is working perfectly?

Actually the two worst bugs are easy to avoid if you know about them going in. Unfortunately we early-adopters were days into a playthrough before the problems came to light, so most of us got stung to one degree or another. But you should be fine.

I actually kind of like them now. I normally just ignore gold names when I see them, but sometimes it's fun to take a break and read through someone's story, much like the history books can make a nice break from a dungeon.

So, is everyone playing their ciphers as primarily ranged? I want mine to be a finesse-y melee gish type.

:' | My cipher is constantly dying, I am terrible at videogames.

The graphic story of wartime rape, among other similar things, might still make the game a bit much for your little ones even after the swearing is bleeped.

Fan of Flames is pretty face-melty at early levels. I usually save all my first-level slots for that.

You don't surprise me -- they are optimized for exactly the style of play you've described as your favorite in this thread. The focus on that style of play came at the cost of making tactical play tooth-grindingly clumsy. I'm very pleased that Obsidian avoided a similar "trying to be all things to all people" pitfall with PoE.

If you don't want to control a full party, I'm not sure what the old-fashioned isometric style of game offers you. Dragon Age is probably the best comparison for a game that tries -- with less than perfect success -- to bridge the gap between these two dramatically different gameplay styles. Those (like my roommate for example) who play Dragon Age controlling only their PC, typically choose to play with the camera fully zoomed in for a more visceral feel to the battle. The one big advantage of a birds-eye view is that it enables you to see and control battles from a tactical standpoint. If you don't need to manage a full party, why choose an isometric view at all? And I don't think these are styles of play that blend well, even with a much larger development budget. Throughout the life of the Dragon Age series, the need to accommodate a single-character, action-oriented style of play has always come at the expense of a clumsy, frustrating implementation of tactical play. As someone who prefers the tactical style, I'm glad that PoE didn't try to be two things at once the way Bioware did.

Yes, and the mixture of styles is great. The various hymns and legends in the Temple of Eothas did a wonderful job of conjuring up a picture of what life among community of faithful there had been like, giving the grim end to that quest a feeling of real weight.

The backers themselves wrote the stories for their characters? That's surprising, since they seem to have a pretty consisent style.

I'm not trying to hate on your playstyle, but developing a complex set of AI scripts like the one you describe would have taken a huge amount of of time and resources -- and I'm not at all confident that the result would have been very impressive, given that even pathfinding is something that PoE struggled with during the beta.

I haven't tried using traps yet so I can't speak to your whole post, but I am strongly in support of Obsidian's design decision on out of combat buffing.

Recovery time and casting time are the trouble with my Cipher, as while he's standing there in melee for five seconds casting a spell he is not doing any damage but he is getting punched in the face. So even though Focus isn't a scarce commodity, I still find it's best to have him only cast at a couple of junctures in the fight -- usually at the outset and when the guy he's engaged with goes down.

Another upvote. I like that the combat music is the most nostalgic and very reminiscent of BG, while the scene-setting music for the different areas has more of its own feel, making Eora feel like its own place rather than just The Forgotten Realms 2.0.

A wizard with a high Might stat will do decent weapon damage separate from spells. Aloth spends most of his time auto-attacking with a wand from the back rank. His Might score is mediocre so it's not a ton of damage, but he's not useless by any means when his spells are gone.

I agree. A choice between spending ingame resources and accepting inconvenience and busywork is not one the player should be faced with. The inn should not be free, but camping supplies should be priced more affordably. For potential cases where the player runs out of money but absolutely needs to rest, there could be a free charity hostel that comes with penalties (to stats or reputation) that would be useful for emergencies but did not incentivize constant penny-pinching runs back to town. For clarity: So do I. What I don't like is the way you can get around it by accepting a less-fun style of play (running back to the inn every night).

The same voice actor does both Aloth and Eder. Range! I didn't notice before I was told, but now it weirds me out to hear them in a dialogue.

Fair enough. I just would argue that a text form is better for multiple reasons [reasons] I agree. So, in gratitude for the unpaid work Sensuki has done in researching this information and putting together the video, why not follow his example and take a similar action to help out other players by making a transcription of your own?

Sounds like you want "rational" not "clever". Which seems right to me -- "clever" is almost never an unmixed compliment, as it often implies shallowness and being overly elaborate for its own sake.

What about the specifically anti-female homophobia of the Legion described by Veronica in her companion dialogues is "logical"? Even granting your assumption that women are ("logically") viewed as breeding machines in service of the Legion's war effort (And -- is that actually logical? Would having tons of babies actually be a great thing for a tribe mobilizing for war in a water-poor, food-poor region?), there is no rational benefit to prohibiting relationships between women, which can easily flourish alongside enforced pregnancy. The only reason for it is the sadly typical desire to police and limit female sexuality just for the sake of asserting control.

I felt a closer tie with Arcade Gannon, who had no explicitly romantic dialogue, than I ever did with Zevran, my ostensible romance in DA:O. Arcade was simply well-written enough that I had a clear sense of him as a person my character was travelling with. I think the same was true of Veronica -- in my roommate's mind she was absolutely his waifu even though there was no storyline about it in the game. Romantic conversations in games don't usually add a lot to the creation of a three-dimensional character -- certainly, the sex scenes don't. I'd rather just have the writers spend their time on providing an interesting background to all the characters, who players can then head-canon into lovers if they choose, than on ensuring there's a menu of sexual flavors to be selected from. [ETA: this is not intended as a back-handed slam against Bioware's character writing -- the love interests in DA:Inquisition were also well-written and interesting. I just think they would have been equally interesting without the skin.]

??? I am a KS backer, and although I did choose to download through Steam, it was only one of the options I was given when I redeemed my key. What's your beef here, exactly?

I'm ridiculous -- I love the steam stats and achievements and so on, so that for me outweighs GOG being DRM-free.