Silent Winter

There's no co-op - single player only. Adding an option to roll (with still a limit on max-points - so a 'randomiser') wouldn't play against that though. Point-buy would be the option for those who want to choose, and 'randomise' for those who want to get what they're given. Rolling to allow points beyond the current max wouldn't be a go.

Special weapon, yes, even 'legendary' from a lore-standpoint. But not superweapon - maybe in PoE2? Something like 'Mallet's Mallet' -> slightly more damaging than normal hammers but keeps you wide awake so no stun/sleep affects you. Not 'Thor's Hammer' - strikes for triple damage and casts lightning bolt AOE on enemies while pouring you a cup of mead. No Crom Feyr or Carsormyr in PoE(1) Maybe a Mace of disruption (situationally powerful) but not the instakill version - just added crits against undead or something. Else we get power-creep in PoE(2) and the ultimate sword of death and pancakes becomes 'meh'

Viconia one (aside from bandits) was a little sparse but the other 2 were great. Spiders, traps, Gullykin+bounty-hunters Sure but 'to their fullest' doesn't mean 'mobs of enemies' - that was IWD's problem for me (but at least there was a point to all the mobs in that). More points of interest might be nice - but being able to explore a small area without having to fight the wildlife, would make for a lot of atmosphere - and make the enemies you do encounter more dramatic.

I thought the pets were supposed to be unkillable (but also useless) mascots - did this change? --- +1 for helmets providing some kind of base bonus.

can you initiate dialogue as a polymorphed character? Anyhoo - will miss the arrows but not the running out of them

not really - there'd be a bottom layer with basic 'PoE-feels texture', each panel would have its own frame that blends into the bottom layer at the edges - since it would only be movable in the x-axis, it wouldn't be very hard to implement. (If my render machine were functional, I could whip up an example but sadly ... )

Go into the portrait folder ctrl-A to select all ctrl-X to cut Go into steam PoE females folder ctrl-V to paste ? If you haven't extracted them yet - to extract - if the folders are named 'male' and 'female' like in the archive, just extract to the folder one level higher - it should then merge the folders So extract to: Public Beta/PillarsofEternity_Data/data/art/gui/portraits/player ?

tried to edit my post before but the page wouldn't load and then I had to run to class. Was going to clarify my position re: form v function: ^Pretty much this - Sensuki's idea seems the most practical in terms of ergonomics. My preference for portraits on right and log in the middle is probably from BG/IWD influence but I find it more aesthetically pleasing. I'd be fine with either one over the current setup. Yep - log on left, combat action buttons in the middle and other stuff on the right. Nice and useful like in Sensuki's setup (of course the screen was smaller then so looking to left/right at bottom wasn't a big thing - on widescreens it's a greater distance to get to the corners) ?? That's an odd decision - I'd expect info to be where I'm pointing - hope they change that.

It's better than current. I too like the log in the middle but for clicks and things it makes sense to have portraits there. I'd prefer portraits right, log middle, other left.

^yeah, the 'large' portraits in BG1/2 et al are the same size as the in-game ones in PoE. (In BG, you'd see the 'medium' and 'small' portraits in-game - 'large' ones at character creation and end-game epilogues after TOB)

Insofar as everything is relative, I won't disagree. But 'terrible' in a single-player (party-based but you could also solo a straight fighter) game would mean, to me, that it's really, really difficult (to impossible) to complete the game with. As Lephys just said - we could have mediocre builds up to awesome builds - powergamers still get their fix, challenge accepted at less optimal builds, but still no 'bad' builds. It's not necessary to go all the way down to 'woah, I'm hitting for 1 damage 5% of the time with 3 stamina on easy.' So the question is: Where do we draw the line at acceptible levels of suckiness? Personally I'd like to see a broader range of effect than we have now, but I don't think it needs a huge tweak. Maybe double the values / distance between top and bottom (so some could be reduced and some increased a little)

This sounds horrible.. I expect so much better from Obsidian. Yes - I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek about the 'quest-only-xp' system. I'm sure the writing will be better than that It's not my premise - I was merely explaining the difference between statistical bias and poll-Q bias. In statistics, if the participants in a poll are self-selected, it's considered biased. Since it's statistically more likely that certain types of voter will vote. Or something. (You mentioned the choices in the poll as being unbiased so I thought I'd try to clarify what was meant by others when they said it was biased) We've no way of knowing if the participants in this poll are representative - but like I said, it's enough for discussion purposes. If Obsidian were going to pay attention to a poll, they'd need to do one themselves.

fair enough - I was picturing 'fire-claws' as a substitute but it's not that important

You can cast spells while shifted, yes? So can you cast firebrand while shifted and use a fire-added claw attack?

Thanks for putting all the reposts together Indira

I think there's an option if you start a new thread but once the OP is locked (uneditable) I don't think you can add one. Yep - on the right side as you start new topic there's a 'manage poll' button - you need to add Q's to make the poll

I specificially said the problem isn't just the sample size. The poll is most likely biased, but we can only guess about that part. It doesn't represent the 71k backers because the highly invested ones are overrepresented, not despite that. I don't think the poll is biased.. the loudest voices will always be the ones heard.. we can't possibly send this poll to every backer via email but I don't think the poll's design was biased in favor of any choice.. it represents in broad strokes all the rough mechanics people want It's biased because people voting for change are more likely to bother voting than people who are happy or just don't care. If the participants were selected at random from among the backers (via e-mail or whatever) and then they all returned a vote, it would be less biased. It's not about the choices in the poll, it's about statistical bias. But the poll's only for our benefit anyway to give us an idea of what we're all thinking. It needn't be foolproof.

Side-quests give xp too - so if you never do any side-quests, you'll be slightly behind the curve. But the crit-path gives enough xp to reach level 10-11 (last I heard, sorry, no quote), so you won't be too far behind. But if you do some side-quests in the areas you visit, you'll level up slightly faster. The Endless Paths contains xp - just not enough on each floor to level you for the next floor. Depending on how good you are and how well-balanced your team is, you may be able to get slightly further in it before having to bug-out. The final floor will probably need a level-12 team playing well to beat (I hope so at least). ^The above is based on old info ... back when I thought it was objective-xp .... but should still hold true under quest-xp. Just not sure what 'quests' we'll be given in the Endless Paths - either subterranean sentient beings need the rats clearing or an upside feller gives you the quest 'bring me what you find down there' *shrug*

^maybe if there were a poll, more people would venture their opinion. Forumites like polls

Hey, RadonGOG. Unfortunately our backer funding period has ended and we cannot accept additional backers. Keep on the lookout, though, because we will be opening up preorders soon. Also, the beta will only be distributed over Steam. There are many reasons for this, but here are a couple of big ones: This makes sure that there aren't multiple versions of the beta floating around at the same time. All backers will be on the official build when we discuss issues and bugs they are seeing. This may not seem important, but it can save the development team lots of time when solving those bugs. Steam makes distribution of patches very easy on our end. Essentially, we can copy a new build up to their servers and they will automatically generate patches for us. This means we can put out beta patches much more frequently on Steam. So although my order already got finalized (but not already payed) and it still got an order ID (SWDO65Q2VFW3Y) I won´t be able to pay the bill as I´m not allowed to? It´s O.K., no real problem for me (I´ll be buying it on release then and just handing a coupon to the friend of mine that was supposed to get the second key...), but it still looks strange as the order isn´t terminated yet... If the order says 'open' or 'pending' or something like that, then I'd contact support - they might let you finalise it with payment then. Worth a try anyway.

^I'd just like to point out that this post wasn't there when I put my reply in (must've been awating mod-approval) So DrBrian passes his stealth-check and gets the 'Stealth Ninja' award

I meant - 'does it work now' - has anyone tried it?

So does it work for dropping in alternate character portraits? Or are we missing what the names of those files would be?

Ok, the analogy makes a little more sense when put like that (opening gambits) but at the same time - the endspiel isn't your opening gambit - it requires responding to your opponent in-game and adjusting your tactics (I'm not a great chess-player so maybe that's why I'm seeing a clearer distinction). In PoE, if the choices you made at CharGen don't work the way you thought they would, you should be able to find the strengths of the character you do have and play to them. (In theory - haven't played it myself) It's never going to be as complex as Chess for learning master strategies. So maybe some advice in CharGen stat allocation would remove the problem of bad builds anyway (unless someone wants to take a gimped build challenge like in BG) Also 'how your class works' might be in different ways according to the build - Favouring a queen gambit doesn't mean playing the queen in exactly the same moves (no?) A fighter needn't be a tank / damage-dealer. They could also be a dancer. Sure - but some people learn best by playing the game, coming up against a challenge and needing several attempts. Needing to replay a few hours of Fed-ex quests because of that shouldn't be a design goal (though see later where I agree) Others are more analytical from the outset and read the manual, plan a character and take stock of each encounter before committing to a strategy. Because in their experience, it takes more brain than brawn to be a good fighter? I've seen little guys throw big guys across a room (both skilled martial artists - not master vs. couch-potato) and both styles should be viable. Though 'dumping' Might/Con on a figher wouldn't really enter into that so I agree with you there. It's physical but with the kind of mental focus that comes from training, rather than application of muscle. Having said that - it depends on the game and how the classes are designed. I don't know if PoE has designed fighters to be more tactical or simply 'Me crush you to goo' Perhaps Monk class is the intelligent fighter here? (Or Barbarians, amusingly enough) I think it's more 'whatever character you play with, you can find a way to make it work to beat the game' - not 'pick any stats then wade into melee' I'm not against some builds being (much) more difficult than others - but saying you can't have a low-might, high-int fighter that works by tying up the enemy while your druid knocks them on the head from behind in bear form, isn't what I'd agree with either.

You can't change them simply by switching around portrait file names. Is it a tough work around? PEs portraits are pretty bad so I'll probably be changing the companions once I decide on a "final" party. It seems that the BB characters have their portraits bundled in with their character file, so you'd have to edit those. Hopefully the final game with have an override folder for such things