Kabyk

most of these topics have already been discussed to death here, but i agree most heartily on the companions. they don't have any real context outside of themselves, making them seem stitched onto the side of the game like a vestigial organ. the fighting pits is interesting, however. i never really used them in bg2, but coliseum's are always fun side-games for people who enjoy the core combat of the game (as opposed to most mini-games which are usually some novel mechanic). they're always welcome in the Tales Of games.

unlike an action game where you can just spam the combo button, the difficulty of the crpg is directly correlated and wholly dependant on your investment in the details of the combat and mechanics. when you read every description of every item and weapon, sit and compare stats between sabre and stiletto, and learn what every single spell does; then the game will be easy. if, however, you try to minimize the research time by reading the bare minimum amount of text, you will end up with a decent challenge, even if you're higher level than the enemies. why? because crpg's have a hundred times more rock-paper-scissor interactions than your normal "mainstream" game. for example : if you just compare damage numbers, you'll probably end up equipping weapons on people who aren't proficient with them, inflating difficulty by reducing efficiency. if you ignore all the debuff spells because of all the text, you'll end up only using direct damage spells; and we all know how useful cc vs damage spells are... if you can't be bothered to test and figure out the difference between potion of power(name?) and potion of rejuvination (since both give Endurance), you'll end up using the wrong one or at the wrong time [or not at all]. my party is level 10-11, and i continue to have an adequete level of difficulty [challenging enough to be fulfilling, but not really "hard"]. i feel i have a decent grasp of a large chunk of the spells, but i'll admit i am ignoring some just because i'm lazy and i know what worked previously so i know what i know and that's that. i'm using Obsidian companions, like most "average" or standard players of the game will probably do, as making adventurers would be extra time they dont want to spend, and as we know the game companions are pretty subpar. this also keeps the challenge up [i suppose you could make an argument for using the term " artifically inflated" here]. (although if i decide to do all 15 levels of caed nua later, i will probably make new party for it) my point is, the OP was on the right track with his thoughts about the "casual vs hardcore" players, but he didn't go deep enough. it's not simply about having more levels and gear but the drive to sift through all the items in your inventory and actually utilizie them. some of you would be surprised at how much of the items your average player actually uses (and i'm referring to all games, not just pillars). hell, a large swathe of players never even make it to the ending credits of games 60% shorter than pillars, let alone learn all the ins-and-outs of combat.

i think the issue people are having is simply the apathy and passivity of the companions more so than having X number from Good and X from Evil or whatever. when you RP a Good playthrough in BG you are, by default from roleplaying, determining which companions you can and cannot have; as people like Viconia will leave your party if you are too nice. so roleplaying the story directly roleplays your companions as well. by roleplaying you will, by necessity, end up with different parties*. not so in PoE. in PoE, the companions [with 1 or 2 exceptions] only care about two things: your personal journey and theirs. so political choices during the game only gets one-off comments, sometimes, from your companions, with no action or real consequence. at least twice in a row i had dialogues where hiravias interrupted to yell at me, only for his "friendly meter" to stay the exact same outside of that vacuum-sealed context of a conversation. then we moved on to the next phase of his character quest like nothing happened. they are all just so damn amicable. your party could be the exact same whether you [in DnD terms] are going Lawful Good or Chaotic Evil; it makes no difference as far as party composition is concerned. ** * that, i believe, is the crux of the argument. ** yes, i know there is a very specific exception to all this, as mentioned by other people.

Just my two cents on the "balance" from the BG games and people's opinions of it [and comparing it to Pillars]... People are saying the BG games are easy in hindsight, after significant study of the game's contents and mechanics. I played both 1 and 2 in a casual manner, and I found both pretty difficult. Why? 1) I failed to finish the Flail of the Ages quest for whatever reason (i think this is the correct weapon I'm recalling). Missed a part or something [if I recall, it's a fairly tedious and multi-stepped quest]. As such, I didn't have the best weapons for the end-game and struggled to do high damage later on. 2) I never used traps so I didn't know they were insanely overpowered. [technically my fault for not experimenting with everything available, but I can't imagine that every single person who played the game tested every single thing either] 3) I didn't read the two dozen volumes of text required to understand all the nuances of high-level magic : referring to the different protection spells and spells like Sequencer. So all the end-game mages were really hard to beat. 4) I also did NOT re-roll my PC. She was as good as I could get her and was fairly useful, though still ended up relatively sub-par. This is something I think is underestimated. I can take an educated guess that the average player did not re-roll either; unless their PC was completely worthless, most probably just dealt with it. My point : After finding out all this info after I played it, I can see how people would say the games are easy; they're the hardcore players who found all the best stuff and strategies. However, I feel that my experience is probably closer to the "average" player's experience of the game. While on this forum, it may seem like there were no casual players of the BG games, I can bet you there were and they likely had a decent and/or acceptable challenge level. While I agree Pillars is easier, I get the feeling it is still challenging enough for average players on the Normal setting. I also understand that the argument is that, regardless of how tedious it was to get the best weapons in BG, the fact that they shouldn't have been that powerful, is a good one; but if you were willing to go through the trouble of getting it, you probably didn't need it to beat the game anyway. That being said, I'm sure the majority of people who backed and are playing Pillars are the ones who mastered the IE games, so my point may be moot. Regardless, I wanted to refresh some of you on context and perspective when talking about the BG games when comparing their difficulty to Pillars. I don't think it's as drastic a difference as it is being made out to be. I refer to the median experience of the average player. I will agree when you get to the higher difficulties and more dedicated players on the extremities of the player spectrum, Pillars does start to fray at the edges.

I agree that enemy mages need more defensive measures, however I do not want the two dozen "protection from X" spells from BG2 where the end-game mages had every single one stacked and you needed to read a freakin' textbook to know how to peel each one away. It was just tedium. I'm also 100% in agreement on the companions. After a few sets of dialogue from each one I realized how apathetic they are about everything else but the PC and themselves (so they don't have much to add elsewhere). They're just so damn amicable. None of what they contribute means much. I was shocked when Viconia just up and left me in a fury in the middle of a dungeon. It filled me with horror to have to finish without my cleric, but it was quite the unique experience that left an impression, exactly what we should be having. I, too, found it odd when no one ever said much about my Godlike-status. The description during character creation said people all over dislike them in general (it's one thing that the different races/nations agree on), but aside from an extra line from one or two people that don't affect the outcome of the overall conversation, there wasn't anything to it.

The OP dilemma is strong in this game. Especially if you haven't rolled through all your Mage/Druid spells yet either. It's like....80% of my party is green health and i still have 60% of my spells....but this ONE factor (tank being in Red HP) is making me Rest. It is somewhat vexing, I will admit.

Chronology of events = 1) got excited when i saw this thread. really needed that +2. 2) confirmed random loot : gloves of accuracy. 3) got sad. does this mean there are no gloves of mechanics +2 in my game? or can they randomly generate elsewhere?

after building brighthollow, i tried out the resting, once, just to see. Never Again. i already spend 70 percent of my time in defiance bay in loading screens, i don't need to spend that same amount anywhere else in the game. i have yet to make it to twin elms, but if its formatted like defiance bay, then all the more reason to spend as little time in loading screens elsewhere.

I honestly thought I was just lazy and missed some dialogue when I had the exact same issue as you, OP. I remember someone, I think Aloth(?) asking me something along the lines of "Is Thaos weighing on your mind?" And I'm just sitting here going, Did I skip some dialogue earlier? I have no idea who Thaos is. I assumed I just didn't remember the name of the hooded guy when he told me. Then much later I finally get to Webb and she tells me "His name is Thaos" and I'm just like, Uh...yeah, I know. My companion told me.

Regarding OP, a true completionist probably would've gotten the strategy guide (and I think it has hidden item locations in it, if other posts are to be believed). Secondly, my favorite part of the original post was that he was PERFECTLY HAPPY missing all the items when he didn't know about them. Just running through areas in Defiance Bay as content as can be. Ignorance truly is bliss, eh? Thirdly, an earlier post mentioned that this game is relatively easy (after an early hump) and you won't be using 70% of the items you find anyway, not counting the hidden ones, which as has been noted is usually a scroll of fire or some money; it's not like you're finding the Ultima weapons in the hidey holes.

What I've learned from this thread is that there are people who don't live permanently in Fast mode. Crazy.

Crap. I only found out how awesome Slicken was a day or so ago. I'm pretty sure it's the main reason I got through all the drake/xaurip clusters in Searing Fields. Why not just do what every other debuff spell does and simply stop affecting high(er) level lunits? I don't see a problem with its AOE if it just affects the xaurips and leaves the drake unaffected to keep blasting my paladin.

Good to know there are people out there who see the truth about Dark Souls. Nothing bothers me more than people who say DS didn't have story or backstory, because that, by defintion, proves to me they didn't bother reading or doing any real exploration; and just played it like a DMC [or other hack n' slash] game where you just hack through the monsters and only look at stats on items. It's like a little tell. I agree on the companions about them being somewhat boring and I wasn't sure why. Prior comments in this thread seem to make sense. So far I've found them all far too amicable (my biggest issue) and willing to talk about their homeland and their backstories; guess I know why.

Can I ask, in what SPECIFIC scenario does the double-click bug take effect? I don't double-click often; if I recall I really only do it to equip something from the Stash immediately on my character (something along those lines). I have had no issue with it. I need to check my char's stats, because I don't believe I have the double-stat bug either. That, or I'm just a terrible player since I am not steamrolling everything as I would if I had double stats. I'm not going to say that people are "crying" about bugs because I understand what they're going through, and I would be the first person exasperated about glitches if I had them, but until I came on the forum looking for tactics advice, I was legitimately unaware that this game was buggy. A few typos maybe, but otherwise a clean experience. Of course, now I've just jinxed myself.

The size is definitely below-average as far as aura's go. I'm not too far into the game, but I have a Moon godlike, and I'd say it has a fairly unique size; bigger radius than a lot of Fan AoE but smaller than Chanter and most Modal auras. It's large enough to hit your other frontliner's but probably won't be affecting your ranged characters in the back. I do have the same issue as the previous guy, where my Moon is hit first so only she gets the heal for the 25% proc and a lot of times the 50% proc as well. Even if it's just for themselves, it's a good ability to counter any surprise first-strike attacks from enemies that do more damage than you expected; a nice buffer for those surprises.