anameforobsidian

You can actually dominate the Vithrack if your cipher is high enough. Make them a tank against their own spider pets and then laugh.

You have never known the joy of watching your Wizard beat another wizard to death with a book.

My favorite part of that thread:

Eh, on the one hand I wish they had a talent that sacrificed the pet for a damage boost, but on the other rangers have always been a mess of a concept that has never really gelled together. The original concept was a ranger without a pet, but there was vociferous complaining from ranger fans. The game probably would have been better for having a marksman class instead of a beastmaster class.

There are many swarms of weak enemies (xaurips), especially during the final fight of the first level of the endless paths. There are traps in battles. Ogres absolutely can pull more, which'll lead to a nasty combo. There are no archer ambushes though. However, it seems like many of the encounters you want are a bit artificial by design. They rely on abusing the game designer's control instead of actually being difficult. I would say that However, almost all of those are only sparingly in the main game, they require wading through a lot of optional content.

A lot of the negativity carries over from the backer beta, where strong voices had some legitimate complaints, some personal preferences, and some unrealized self-aggrandizing that got amplified through an echo chamber.

With priests they look for your choice of god, it was enough for them for me to notice it. Personally, I suspect ciphers get the most unique text.

You can also use a chanter, their summons eat up dominates. Or you can knock down your own party members.

I personally thought all the zones in Defiance Bay needed more content except Ondra's Gift. Twin Elms was smaller, but it was significantly content denser, and I generally thought it was the better city (beside's Ondra's gift). I would like to see more small towns and outlying areas in the game. BG1 had Beregost, Friendly Arm, Nashkel, Gullykin, Baldur's Gate, and Candlekeep (Ulgoth's Beard in TotSC). PE had Gilded Vale, Defiance Bay, Dyrford, and Twin Elms. Many of those cities had significantly more minor quests and weird encounters in them than PE did. But I think a game is usually in a good place when my main complaint is that I want twice as much of it.

I would not go off average salary. These are skilled professionals, so it's likely to be higher in the case of everyone who isn't a tester. Also, I think both 190 and 60 are waaaay too high. Most of time it seemed like 20 or 30 until they were doing full production. Also, the next game will be quicker to make if it has the same amount of content. A lot of the stuff they did in this game are now solved problems for the next game.

I would actually be okay with reduced VO. The rando actors (especially Calisca) weren't great. Most of the party members were good.

The only things that I think need serious balancing on the cipher is their focus at really high levels (70 is a lot to start with), and the area of amplified wave.

Sounds optimistic. I believe Steam has about 80% of the market share for this sort of thing. So 300,000 is more realistic at this point. (I believe the physical non-backer versions are Steam also.) 80% is probably conservative. I'll be conservative too and say 85%, but my gut says 90%. 80% is actually the best number we have. Which brings the whole think up to $10m before Paradox and 323k new sales. That beats the crap out of their kickstarter budget.

There are a lot of early weapons with unique enchantments that are great. I absolutely took Eder's Saint's War armor all the way up the quality scale because Second Chance is an awesome enchantment (it went on Pallegina though).

That's $7.8m before Paradox's cut. Not bad for pure profit.

I think it needs some more ending cards, especially for Twin Elms and the Vithrack.

I beat after an hours trying with 18 tons of potions. First I dominated it (ringleader) into killing its own adds. Then, Pallegina in superb saints armor and an excellent beast slayer great sword and Eder with an excellent saber (the endless paths one) are chopping away at it. I kept them on one side so the dragon couldn't breath my party. Durance went down and Pallegina brought him back (and he brought back Aloth and Grieving Mother). Hirviras got some lucky lightning strikes, and the summoned blight would occasionally heal him. My ciphers ran out of focus because that DR murdered blunderbuss damage. Eventually he had knocked out Pallegina, Eder, and Aloth, then I killed him with an insect swarm while my cipher was kiting.

Eder and Pallegina have a very cute moment at the final boss if you have both. Durance and Hirviras are kinda meh if you've done their quest. (End game spoiler): Grieving Mother is an interesting choice.

You're asking for the eqivalent to D&D 3.5's 5-foot steps to disengage. I don't see how that would work in a non-turn-based game without stepping all over some existing spells and abilities which facilitate disengagement. A significantly slowed movement with high defense against engagement. It would only work if enemies were occupied, and is far less of an escape button than rogue / barb abilities.

Absolutely this, on both points. I was annoyed that I couldn't just explore Twin Elms. How hard would it be changing guard dialogue, in the first area, and not letting you any further?

The engagement system could use a shift move, like 4e has.

You think they would have learned after AP. Skaen temple is a bad example of this.

Eh, the AI needs work more than the system. Wizards don't use the abilities they have available, like Dimensional Shift or Iron skin. In BG2 once the AI was worked on, you got to see its atrocious innards. BG2 regularly overleveled and underutilized enemy mages because that was more fun than actually utilizing every aspect of the system. You can summon monsters, and Pillars actually has more summon spells than BG1. You can pelt your enemy with ranged weapons (or minoletta's missiles). More classes can use powerful ranged weapons, so it's an even more viable tactic. Pillars stealth system is not as robust as the IE games. That's a valid criticism, and this summer I'm going to take a hand at modding it. You can run around kiting, it's just not nearly as easy (which is a good thing). Even without boots of speed, monks, chanters, and barbarians can get increased move rates. Furthermore, you don't have to follow "the prescribed stratagem of tanks, support, and DPS." I ran for a little bit on normal with two ciphers and no tanks. Start combat, slicken, mind bomb, and suddenly the enemies are your tanks. Right now I'm working on a party of all barbs. Lots of AoE damage. Many people have said that a party of all chanters has no tanks and absolutely tears through PoD. And there it is. You just listed several enemies that require different strategies. But it's not really about that, it's just about the incredibly cheesy high apm single-player dota movement dance. Which no, you can't do in this game. Because it's unrealistic, abuses enemy targeting in a way that no AI programmer could fix, and is incredibly limited to a small subset of players. The game just doesn't cater to your personal preferences no matter how many times you tried pushing the developers or bitching on the codex.

Three things: 1. If you want a more passive party with less active abilities, try buying a fighter or two barbarian mercenaries. That way your party will be durable, and you'll have that IE feel of sending most of your party members off and focusing on the mage and cleric. 2. It's frequently better to wait until they engage to AoE. This is especially true of druids with their storm powers. 3. Once you're past Gilded Vale, try doing the Endless Dungeons in Caed Nua. 15 levels of monster bashing, with some dialogue, but less than the rest of the game. It's almost like a separate dungeon runner hidden inside an exploration / story based RPG.

It is known. There is little incentive to use anything between basic clothing and full plate armour. Brigandine is no exception. There's lots of incentive for off tanks and mixed melee / ranged characters especially in the end game. They will be taking punches and AoE damage, but speed is important too. My Barbarian especially comes to mind, where she's switching between a breastplate and hide based on the fight. Also, it's not uncommon to find a step up in quality for a cheaper / lower DR armor. I.E. you find a lot more excellent leather than fine plate. In those cases it's frequently best to take the lower. You forgot robes that have a 10% delay (and a few DR). And Hide, which has 5DR and 25% delay. And Breastplates (35% I believe) And Scale (Eder's starting armor is some of the best in the game for an off-tank type when enchanted up). And Brigandine.