Matt516

I mean - the things to avoid are fairly easy (if a bit annoying) for the time being. Just don't save/reload in areas where you recruited companions and don't double click to equip. Other than those and the few bugged items/abilities to avoid, the game is pretty stable. Don't get me wrong. Those two bugs are ridiculous and should be corrected ASAP. But at least they're avoidable.

Was part of Backer Beta. You have no idea how wrong you are. Really though - they've made absolute leaps and bounds. The two major stat-related bugs are huge, but other than that and a few quest-related bugs (which couldn't have been nabbed in the BB as it was a small chunk of game), as well as a few small UI/description/etc complaints, the game's remarkably stable.

Encounters are different. Two bears instead of one, additional minions with a leader, that sort of thing.

Bump? Does anyone know how damage is calculated, at least? I know it's not the 1-6 slash the wiki says, because my barb frequently hits for 10 on Carnage with my 2H sword. Hits, not crits.

Bump

Playing a barbarian, loving it. I do wish the Carnage ability description was more informative, though. I have no idea how much damage it does or how big of an AoE it hits. And I don't trust the wiki because it's wrong or outdated most of the time (at the moment - I suspect it'll get gradually cleaned up). Any chance this could be added in a future patch? Seems like an oversight, given how informative most ability descriptions are.

The description for the barbarian "Blooded" ability says it grants "x1 damage". Now, judging by the convention that's been established by other abikities/weapons for these sorts of bonuses, this should say "x2" if it really does grant double damage. Or "x1.2" if Sensuki's old thread about this issue from the Beta is correct. Either way, the current description is confusing and wrong. Or the ability is useless. One of these two is true.

Bump. This issue is still present - I was planning to make a post about it just now. May do that anyway, in fact.

Yeah - I found the same thing. It appears to work, just doesn't show up anywhere outside character sheet so it's hard to know when it's kicking in.

Hmm. Good question. I have no idea. O_o

Fighting Spirit, though it appears to work (from checking character sheet and stats while in combat and below 50% endurance) mechanically, doesn't show up as an icon next to the character portrait when it activates, nor does it show up in combat log. I'm playing as a Barbarian, lvl 2, if that helps.

Yeah - my charname is a 16 MIG, 16 INT, 18 RES powerhouse. Not optimal for combat, but I'm sure as hell not succumbing to any will-based nonsense. And those sweet, sweet RES dialogue options.

Nah. Tab lets you get around a "gamey" thing, which is that some items are interactable and some aren't. This has no "real-world" equivalent other than not wasting time looking at all the completely non-interesting stuff. Think of Tab as asking the DM "I glance around me for anything of interest - do I see anything?". The game *does* have a mechanic for finding hidden things in Scouting mode. And there's plenty of hidden stuff. All the stuff you can find with Tab was put there for "free", as it were. All this is moot if you find pixel-hunting more fun. It IS a single-player game, after all. Play how you want. :D

Yes, it does. And I don't think Carnage gets an accuracy penalty but you can get a talent that gives it a bonus. Cool. And is it still 1-6 slash damage straight up per Carnage hit, or has it been changed to be some sort of scaling amount?

Title. And does anyone know what the actual numbers on carnage are? (half damage, -5 Acc, etc?)

I believe most things are static - enemy levels, loot levels, etc. It's old-fashioned - the areas progress in difficulty and rewards as you go, and you can easily wander into somewhere too powerful for you if you're not careful. I love it.

I'd very much appreciate this as well. I love the flavor text descriptions - they bring back memories of the fantastic writing in Torment. Please don't obscure the writers' work by putting dialogue over that.

Enjoy! :D Do yourself a favor and stay away from these forums for a while except to check for game-breaking bugs that you should avoid. They're chock-full of lots of people complaining and nitpicking about little things, and you don't want to let that ruin your enjoyment of the game (which is truly somewhat of a masterpiece). Not that some of the complaints or suggestions aren't valid (I have my own) - but PoE really is a fantastic game, and you shouldn't let reading about each individual person's bugbear or design choice they don't like affect your impression of the game. Re: those aforementioned game-breaking bugs... don't ever equip things by double clicking (drag/drop instead), and don't save/reload in zones that you've recruited characters from. At least til the first patch. Don't do those two things and you should be fine. EDIT: Also, from what I've played so far the story is quite Torment-ish in its twistedness. Mix that with IWD inspired combat and BG inspired worldbuilding/companions, and you've got a fantastic successor to the IE games. You should check out Torment: Tides of Numenera as well if you haven't heard of it already. I call it PoE's "sister" game - a fellow spiritual successor to the IE games (this one focuses specifically on the "Torment" feel). Still in development for quite a while, but what we've seen looks great.

Yup. This is something that will hopefully be fixed in a patch. Right now, INT doesn't increase the total damage of DoT abilities, just the duration (as far as we can tell, anyway) - so you end up doing less damage per second for a longer time, which is worse by any way of looking at it. Best solution (assuming they don't want to make INT actually affect DoT damage, which kinda makes sense given that's what MIG is for) would simply be to make the damage portion of any DoT affect not scale duration with INT while any debuff portion does. This would obviously require some re-coding though to split all DoT abilities into the damage and non-damage portions.

Godlikes definitely have more powerful racial abilities than the other races. This is, however, balanced out by the fact that they can't wear helmets (which can be enchanted later in the game). Theoretically. Yeah, I hated that this became a "thing" in the Beta. Fortunately, if you *want* to go unarmored, there are clothing options available with no speed penalty so your characters don't end up literally being naked.

Great game. Attribute stacking and double click bugs are huge. They fix those, and it'll be a stellar game.

Barbarian. You want a tank of some sort. Fighter or Paladin is probably best, though Monk could probably do as well.

Fun fact - there used to be a stat that adjusted Accuracy. For a very long time. It was DEX for a while, then PER for a while (after they put action speed on DEX). The problem they ran into was that you basically then had two stats that increased average DPS - MIG and ACC. And ACC actually outclassed MIG for increasing damage a good portion of the time - it depends on the relative value of ACC vs DEF as to whether one more point of ACC or MIG is better. Not to mention that ACC is incredibly powerful because it affects not only damage but duration of duration abilities (grazes have half duration, and crits had increased duration, not sure if this is still the case for crits). I get the impression they removed it to A) have MIG just be the "damage" stat and INT be the "duration" stat without having to deal with the complex interactions the two have with ACC, and B) have an easier time judging how much ACC any character can obtain at various points throughout the game (for balancing purposes), as well as put more emphasis on class starting ACC as important. TL;DR - Used to be like that but they changed it, probably because the ACC stat was waaaay too powerful and it's easier to balance the game this way. EDIT: Melee and Ranged Accuracy also used to be split up. Classes had separate starting values for each (though the ACC stat increased both equally). People hated this because it basically pigeonholed classes into whichever was higher - you couldn't try and build a bow Fighter or a sword Ranger without feeling like an idiot. Merging the two was a great change IMO. EDIT 2: Just realized you were talking about Physical/Spell Accuracy, not Melee/Ranged. Oops. Erm.... I guess they could do it that way. It wouldn't make a whole lot of difference though - you'd never ever boost DEX (in that system) on a wizard or RES (in that system) on a fighter. Or at least, it would be obnoxious to do so. Which would Monk abilities use, spells or physical? What about Barbarian shouts? Nah... IMO that system still breaks one of their fundamental design goals for the attribute system - "All attributes can be useful for all classes". Do I think what we have is perfect? Nope. But have they thought things through and done a pretty good job? I think so. It's miles better than D&D's attributes (if you judge it by Obsidian's design goals, which is the only reasonable way to judge it when you're talking about what decisions Obsidian should make).

I'd actually be quite ok with Resolve being repurposed for "soul attack" damage and Might granting "physical attack" damage - at least in theory. That change would play haywire with the attribute balance, though. Not to mention that we'd be right back to a "physical attackers pump MIG, magic attackers pump RES" situation. Might isn't perfect from a lore standpoint - but it works very well from a gameplay standpoint and is passable from a lore standpoint. Again, I like to think of Might as encompassing physical strength (since it obviously, in some sense, does - given what we see in the skill checks), but as magical spells being more powerful when cast by a person of great Might as well. Which, again, is not at all unheard of as a fantasy trope.

Well any IE game aoe damage spells hit your party as well, they're always a situational cast. I have three grimoires now for my wizard and switch between targeted use and a aoe-only grimoire, then I have a dibilitator and controller grimoire as well. Just as an FYI, the yellow part of the AoE doesn't hit allies. This part of the AoE is increased by INT.