grumbold99
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Posts posted by grumbold99
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I don't know how the steam achievements work, but my link broke before I even completed Act 1 without any attempt to cheat on my part, so I wouldn't rely on them as being indicative of anything. It may just be that a lot more people had their achievements break before they reached Act 2.
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I'm delighted the stronghold is there, because it's the sort of feature that would just be too huge an undertaking for mods to produce. Now the bones are done, Obsidian and others can build on it more and more. It has a lot of unfulfilled potential. Hopefully some of it will be unlocked in DLC
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Always read the spell info when choosing your powers, some of them have pitifully small range.
It took me a while to find out that you can hover your mouse over the combat result in your text window to get an exact breakdown of what is happening. If your accuracy is greater than their defence then on average you'll hit more often than you graze and even crit sometimes. If it's lower then you'll graze more than hit and even miss sometimes. Then there's the DR - if the monster has high DR to your attack type then even a hit may only do pitiful damage.
I've learned to be wary of mass 'charm' and 'confusion' style spells that turn the enemy green for a few seconds. It can lead your front line to engage other targets and the temporary friends can get behind the front line. A few seconds later they flip back and your line is now flanked and your weak characters exposed. I now stick to spells that inhibit the enemy without making them green.
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I doubt it. i'm playing the steam version and it hasn't updated my achievements, ever. I got the backer achievement for downloading the game then nothing else. To my knowledge I've never triggered any cheats.
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Yeah it's hard to comment on this without making it even more spoilerific, and it's the wrong forum for that.
File bug report(s) when you encounter this stuff so the developers can fix it faster.
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The fixes look great.
Unfortunately, breaking the ability for AH adventurers to pick locks means I can't load it or I'll wreck my game. I hope you can patch that very quickly!
Edit: Done already? Great
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There was a vote between the digital edition being released early, or everything waiting until the physical copies were all ready for shipping. The decision was made to release the digital stuff early. There is no delay with the physical shipment, there is an early release of the digital copy. For everyone able to access their digital copy while they wait for all the physical goods to be produced this is a good thing. My sympathies to those few having difficulties redeeming their keys. That the first batch of physical copies have been released to stores rather than used to fulfil backer tiers is down to the publisher, but understandable given the vote. We'd all still be waiting anyway, since they would not have released and shipped everything out with insufficient copies to send to stores even if there were no bonus content that has to be produced and added to backer tier copies.
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All my casters pump int to get larger effect zones on their spells and larger safe zones. Why debuff half the enemy group when you can debuff all of them? Like in D&D, if you're using your wizard as a nuker he's generally less effective than if you use him to scramble the enemy and give the rest of the party an easier time dispatching them. If you really want a nuker then feat choice has a lot more impact than a few extra points of might.
Obsidian have definitely streamlined some of the old systems to make gameplay easier. That is what a lot of people wanted. I'm delighted there's no need to prebuff your team while standing just outside the door to the next fight (that you know is there because you blundered into it and had to reload) or micromanage your inventory or all of that tedious stuff. Refining what the stats mean is a part of that. I'm sure mods will be along to tweak the gameplay for those who don't like some of the compromises, but this feels like a pretty good balance to strike to make the game accessible to as many people as possible. I'll be looking forward to a mod that allows you to wait until daytime or rest until morning, but it's minor stuff.
Once you're buying 6000cp armour from the stores and scheduling many expensive upgrades to your stronghold you'll reailse that looting 5cp weapons and 40cp armour is pretty trivial. Selling those 200/400 cp items and quest/bounty rewards will provide the bulk of your income. Do it or not, it's up to you.
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Stopped resting, using slicken or sensible tactics. Nice way to challenge yourself if PotD is too easy for you
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Yes, the combat gets a lot easier once you know what you are doing. If you don't want to bother learning the combat system then you're going to continue to have trouble, although certain setups make it much more hands free than others.
At least Obsidian rcognise that some players want a lot more challenge than others - that's why there's 5 difficulty levels, ironman and solo challenges. If someone comes back and says solo, ironman PotD is too easy for them I'll be impressed!
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I was having problems with the combat in the early stages because the game stops holding your hand pretty fast, without explaining a few key points and before dropping you at the nearest inn to recruit more companions.
If you are finding it hard on 'easy' I'm guessing you've been exploring dark corners (bear cave, temple of eothas, wandering away from the road on wilderness maps) before recruiting a full team. Once you have a party, it becomes very easy to get past most fights on just the encounter powers alone. You will probably have to pause and issue a couple of instructions but it's that kind of game. If you don't want to do that then the squad-of-tanks idea above is perhaps the best option for almost completely hands-free combat. My two tanks are very resilient on normal mode, but I have to manage combat to prevent the others getting squished.
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PoE doesn't quite reach the level of BG2, in my opinion. But that's nothing to worry about.
BTW, BG2 didn't have many free areas to explore. Every map was tied to a story much more than quite a few PoE nature maps like Black Meadows, Magran's Fork and the like. There you have BG1-like maps that pretty much only exist for you to uncover that black fog of non-exploredness, clean them out and later on have some place to put minor side quests in.
PoE doesn't have them as much as BG1 (which is a good thing), but a bit more than BG2 - which was exactly what they said during development.
Regarding companions, I don't think it's necessarily the writing. BG1 companions had very little dialogue at all. And after PS:T, BG2, and DA:Origins, I don't think that you can ever go back to BG1 companion dialogue and call that satisfactory for an IE-style game.
I do think, however, that there's a lot of nostalgia involved. BG1's influence, esp. on people who write on PoE boards, probably can't be overstated, and many have played it multiple times. We do remember (most of) its companions (Eldoth, anyone?), but not for their stellar writing, but because they've been in a game that we've been playing to death for almost two decades.
Black Meadow and Magran's Fork feel smaller than the BG1 maps - but they are GREAT still. I agree BG2 was lacking in that department too, but so huge you soon were glad of that!
As I noted earlier it's not the writing that's slightly lacking. In my opinion it's the voice acting doesn't add much to the writing or bring it to life particularly well. No problem with it - it's fine, just not awesome.
[edit] I accept it's probably just nostalgia. Probably.
You should consider replaying. I've replayed most of the IE games in the recent past, thanks to dedicated people making them compatible for modern machines. PoE is not perfect but I think they've struck pretty much the right note. There was way too much random map exploration for no better reason than acquiring enough xp and loot in BG1 for many people. There's many hours of random exploration in PoE while giving you a decent reason to at least walk down the road through the middle of each one.
The characters are not as ample in quantity as BG2 but they're far more developed and layered than those in BG1. There's plenty of scripted interactions but they seem to kick in a lot more after you've done some in-game stuff on their side plots. I've really enjoyed Aloth and Kana questioning each other and already have plans ot ensure my next playthrough has a different mix to get more combinations to see what they say. I'm very relieved they don't 'bark' some rubbish when I click on them, that got very irritating in BG. I've spent more time playing one game of PoE than it would take me to do two playthroughs of BG1 + TotSC and there's still more to come.
Thematically I don't see this as anything like IWD, which was characterised by a very linear story progression and far greater combat focus. This has far more storyline, like the more celebrated IE games, and requires you to negotiate and make hard choices, not just kill one set of bad guys after another. The side quest content can be approached in whatever order you like. The sheer number of stat checks I cannot pass on this playthrough has me excited to play alternative characters to discover the options I haven't been able to explore on this run. There are also plenty of encounters you can pass relying only on your encounter powers if you have a solidly built team. In IWD your casters were practically unloading in every battle (with the tedious need to prebuff in many cases) and having to rest afterwards.
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I've enjoyed reading the majority of the soul stories I've bothered to look at. The world is a busier environment for having them in it. Should a few less be godlike race and should a few names have been tweaked? Probably. I for one am very glad that enough of these people paid good money to ensure we got PoE with so many extra stretch goals met. Think of all the content that would be missing without them.
The limerick controversy seems pretty overblown. The poem is not explicitly about transgender and is just a stupid joke, like pretty much all limericks, ever. Is it only me who has visions of the people incensed by this limerick spending their weekends writing angry letters to any radio station daring to play 'Lola' by the Kinks accusing them of airing a song that attacks transvestism?No doubt Obsidian will edit it out in a patch to avoid any controversy, and within 30 minutes there will be a "humour" mod released to put it back again.-
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I like games with mature themes but I don't think it's necessary to drop the f-bomb in any game dialogue. It's just down to individual taste, I suppose.
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It took me a little while to work out too. The spells can be very helpful once you know how they work. A timely Chanter spell has completely tipped the balance in my favour in a few tough fights.
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Lots of positives being said, but it's true that often the motivation to hit the forums is sparked by an incident in the game where you think there's a bug, or something has confused you enough that you need to ask for advice.
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The BG2 stronghold had a lot of variety because it was class based, but essentially it was 2-3 side quests and nothing else. The stronghold in NWN2 was a core part of the story so it lived and breathed a lot more. Here it's not integral to the plot because it wasn't part of the central story, just a stretch goal. I can deal with that. Had resources been more abundant doubtless they would have refined it a bit.
It would have been very nice to have seen more labourers working on the construction (or some form of magic - lets face it, manual labourers don't rebuild a cottage, let alone a substantial part of a castle, in 1-3 days). More general folk and guards appearing as the place becomes functional would have added atmosphere. It would also have been nice to have to go back to the keep to greet visitors, issue instructions etc but there has to be some sort of fast option for this - a teleport mechanism - or you end up feeling unable to travel too far away in case events erupt that you can't get back for. That's bad for the core game pacing. I've already missed the same visitor twice simply because travel times precluded getting back in time. It would be far worse if all parts of the stronghold required the same hands on management. Perhaps the interactions should have been via a magical tablet so you can relay instructions and information back and forth to your steward?
I'd have also welcomed some more private chambers in the keep for the player and his friends. It feels odd that the hirelings sleep in the keep barracks but the players are effectively treated as passing guests, resting in the inn. However all this is minor pickiness. I'm far more content having a stronghold to call home and dump my gear in than forever hauling all my stuff around from inn to inn. It's not been perfectly executed but some effort has been made to integrate it. Being able to imprison a couple of NPCs myself rather than deliver them to outside justice or let them go free was a very nice touch.
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I'd like to echo all the praise and thanks here. I've found a couple of minor issues but after 50+ hours and still more adventuring to be done before completing it is a wonderful piece of work and I'm hugely enjoying the journey.
I only hope that you've all enjoyed developing it and are eager to make more games of this calibre, because I'm certainly eager to kickstart for a sequel if that's what it takes.
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You may not need extra levels, but you do need a solid team.
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Ok it makes more sense now... perhaps that gate needs a helpful guard rather than a travel option?
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I entered Copperlane by travelling south from Caed Nua and using the Aedelwan Bridge. When I try to leave via the other gate the time estimate is clearly calculating the time to walk back out the Aedelwan Bridge, up to Caed Nua and round to the north end of the Madhmr Bridge, instead of the 15 minutes or so to reach the southern end. This is probably because I have not previously entered the Madhmr bridge zone from the north.
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Doemenel Manor, Gedmar Doemenel's study chest states it it s 6 Mechanics + 7 picks | 7 mechanics to open. My rogue has 6 mechanics and that tooltip is showing in white indicating the game knows I have the perquisites. When I click on the chest it does not open "Lockpick Failed. You need ...."
I can only assume that the chest is incorrectly labelled or that there's an issue with lockpicks only stacking to 5 in the rogue's inventory. I have 3 stacks in their inventory and more in the stash so it's not a shortage of picks as a whole.
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I have just tried selling the 'Fine' brigandine I created because I have now crafted fine plate to wear instead. When I transfer the item to the trade row it is immediately stripped of its enchantment and priced as a normal brigandine. I've tried this with the newly enchanted plate and it also loses its powers. Game-created fine equipment does not have this problem. Removing the item from the trade row back to inventory does not restore the enchantment.
I have tried this with all the merchants in Copperlane market and it seems to happen 100% of the time.
Patch Notes for 1.1.0.0035
in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Announcements & News
Posted
How? I'd like to complete my current Steam run on the previous settings before doing any new runs withe the updated rules. I hate things that pull the rug from under you right in the middle of a game.