Gromnir

am gonna agree that the chanter is better suited towards a tank role. you need take cautious attack and the shield talents before you are at all effective in a tanking role, but you will eventual have impressive deflection. furthermore, chants is not interrupted by your standard attacks, so while you are beating ogres with your tiny hatchet, you are also building up phrases. ... the thing is, am finding that we don't much like the chant mechanic unless we have multiple chanters in a party. and we don't like multiple chanters in a party. with 2 chanters, each alternating their chants in a mirrored fashion, we can keep our party constant under the influence o' 2-3 phrases, depending on linger. otherwise, if we want constant and dependable phrase coverage throughout a battle, we is reduced to a single phrase. 2 chanters is ideal for making most use of phrases. unfortunately, we don't like chanters enough to use more than 1. wait for invocations to become available is kinda antithetical to our gameplay philosophy. the relative lack o' flexibility o' the chanter is difficult for us to embrace. even so, we admit that a 2-chanter party can be most efficacious. also, there is a certain irony in the fact that the classes that get lore are able to make less use o' the skill than most o' the classes that don't get lore. fighters, monks and rogues get no class bonus for lore. but those non-spell casting classes have the highest base accuracy. well, when lore is used to cast spells, you use class accuracy math. therefore, a monk, rogue and fighter is actual gonna be more dangerous when successful using a scroll than will a mage, priest or chanter. go figure. you not need many points in lore to take advantage o' most scrolls, so is actual our strat to give lore to everybody, but especial the high accuracy classes. HA! Good Fun!

the most annoying aspect o' the stronghold attacks were a bug. if you utilized an aoe damage attack on whatever were attacking your stronghold and one o' your hirelings were hit, the hireling would become permanent hostile towards you, even beyond death. what we means is that if your goldpact knight hireling were made hostile by getting hit by a friendly fire fireball, you could not remove the hostility. ever. kill the knight in battle and then rehire? well, guess what, the new goldpact knight is hostile. worse, a few o' the special hirelings seeming couldn't be dismissed, so you would have a permanently hostile hireling at your stronghold, and any hireling that were in visual range o' the hostile hireling became hostile as well. were a mess. we would need sneak into our stronghold to get to the treasury or dungeon level if we did not wish to initiate a combat. luckily, the bug were fixed after the second or third patch. repelling attacks from either the endless paths or from roaming bandits or leaden key can be handled auto or manual. if one wishes, you can return to your stronghold and repel attacks with your party o' companions plus the keep hirelings. one is also able to have the stronghold defend itself, but buildings get damaged during auto repels and the repair costs is excessive. we have pushed security very high and still been attacked. am not certain what is the mechanics. am pretty confident that by clearing levels o' the endless paths you can eliminate the possibility o' specific kinds o' attacks. get deep enough and you will never need deal with skeleton or troll attacks. am not sure how deep you need clear to grant safety from endless path generated spirit or vythaxixizizxklzx(whatever) incursions. perhaps security lowers the chance o' attack, but am pretty certain that +50 security don't eliminate the chance. we always push security and then prestige in the hopes that will help reduce the dungeon escapees, but... *shrug* the mechanics is opaque, which is another flaw. HA! Good Fun! ps we will note that a few o' the stronghold attacks can be challenging, depending on your level. is conceptually not a horrible feature.

as there is still no news, we observe a few o' our issues with the stronghold. the stronghold ultimately were 'bout as exciting as a take-out menu. sure, there we loads o' options, but most o' em were having little appeal. the warden building were giving value 'cause the bounties were offering much in the way o' cash, experience and equipment. the curio shops and gardens were worthy too. most o' the other stuff? *shrug* am understanding that the stronghold were 'sposed to be a sink, but we saw only a very limited number o' options as providing value. on the positive side, it sounds as if the rest bonuses is getting increased significantly and the duration o' stronghold bonuses will be lengthened. also, while josh noted that many folks dislike strongholds, we do not believe that the poe stronghold is gonna change anybody's opinions. the ordinary interactions we had with the stronghold were annoyance factors. while off doing some quest, we get a message that we will be attacked in 3 days by trolls or skeletons or levitating, psychic, spider-people. heck, perhaps we get a message that in spite o' the fact that we got over 40 security and as many hierlings as possible, one o' our prisoners escaped. am still not certain what triggered the special goods merchant, but hey, after functional waiting 20 game hours before we got another opportunity to buy his stuff, he offered us nothing we would actual wanna use. sure, is not as if we were forced to buy, but perhaps offer us 3 options and let us pick one would work a bit better to be ensuring we would get some value from the so infrequent special goods merchant. converse, the "fun" o' the stronghold were extreme limited: a few o' the bounty battles were challenging and the ogre hierling had a couple quirky comments to be making. the most common interaction with the stronghold were a rather mechanical opportunity to pay for improvements, and those improvements were offering a prestige or security value, neither o' which ultimate meant much to us. the aforementioned prisoner aspect struck us as being woeful underdeveloped, and as noted earlier, am not certain how the escape chance were generated. even so, the prison/jail were actual one o' the few stronghold features, other than warden bounty fights, the struck us as having the capacity to be entertaining. take folks prisoners and potential ransom them, or sell 'em to slavers or shady animancers... which were a redundant descriptor as far as we could tell. prisoners actual offered some feedback when prompted. were one o' the better features, but it were underused. is an ideal place where a couple minor quests could' been added... or perhaps give select prisoners a chance to join as unpaid hirelings, who might then escape or betray you or whatever. "now what?" ok, so we buy all the building options. what else is there to do for stronghold? fight off some o' those annoyance battles? candlekeep led to something. sure, candlekeep were likely too much as it were critical path necessity, though you could avoid doing any candlekeep and still have a positive nwn2 game conclusion. nevertheless, even if the obsidians didn't wanna have their limited quest pool tied to the stronghold, there shoulda' been at least one quest or event that made a meaningful check o' your prestige/security levels. had us working towards... nothing. possibility: depending on prestige/security, there could be three possible stronghold ultimate encounters. wouldn't need be a quest per se, but mere some kinda recognition that your stronghold efforts had been leading somewhere. hell, for folks that like in-game recognition, you coulda' added a title to the character based on their stronghold resolution. regardless, shoulda' been a resolution, and some kinda payoff, even if the payoff were extreme minor and the resolution were hardly final. am thinking we mentioned earlier in another thread, but a major domo or seneschal appointment might be worthy o' consideration. the stronghold got dull. fine. the thing is, once started, you cannot opt out o' the stronghold responsibilities. reach twin elms and perhaps you get the opportunity to functional retire from direct control o' the keep. you would continue to get rest bonuses, but turns would effective be stopped and taxes and hierling paydays would be handled behind the scenes. regardless, you could effective opt-out o' all the turn-based functions o' the keep by appointing a chamberlain. then again, our wants is so much different than nakia that we can see the problem. have addition o' maids or cooks. have chapel become dedicated to eothas instead o' berath. such stuff would improve our stronghold experience not at all. has gotta be difficult for developers. HA! Good Fun!

am genuine surprised that Gromnir has not purchased the iwd ee. to us, iwd were more fun than bg... better looking and sounding too. am unsure why we didn't pull the trigger on iwd ee. that being said, we woulda' paid $100 per game if the ie ee games utilized iwd2's d20(ish) rules. we played d&d as far back as the white-box edition, but am admitting we were never a genuine fan o' the ad&d system, particularly 2.0. 3.5 edition, sans all the splat books, were our favorite d&d incarnation. HA! Good Fun!

ah, the mindless criticism o' wsj as a source. but heck, congrats on the deflection. is so far away from your initial nuttery regarding the absence o' reasonable fears regarding the iranian nuke weapon program and claims of "scaremongering." HA! Good Fun!

And to illustrate further how you work back from your conclusion rather than forward to it: numerous middle eastern countries means... two; Saudi Arabia and Israel, hate this deal. The governments of Turkey, UAE, Qatar, Oman, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Pakistan (not technically ME, but an Iranian neighbour), Jordan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Lebanon have all welcomed it, to one degree or the other while Kuwait, Bahrain and Yemen haven't commented so far as I can find. So, numerous nations = two, but the two that happen to support your position. so, outright lies, eh? we showed multiple times how your nonsense o' presenting russia's (dwindling) currency reserves were hardly making sanctions and the russain economic crisis a matter o' laughable concern. and again, the 6-12 months were always a worst-case scenario offered by economists we linked to rebut the notion that the matter were joke-worthy. the specific 6-12 months figure were never essential. am not sure why we are surprised. your claims o' paysite shenanigans were mostly linked to kurdin, by which time you had complete gone off the reservation. kurdin, a russian economist of much repute, specific noted that western sanctions were hurting and would continue to hurt russia. is difficult dealing with you. russia did not simple shrug off sanctions. you made classic correlation v. causation mistakes regarding oil impact and you complete ignored contradictory info from sites you linked to. hell, you even misread the darn bloomberg graph you offered. *shrug* as for middle-eastern nations opposed to the deal, 'course Gromnir is most concerned with US allies. saudi arabia and israel is foremost o' opponents and is the ones who most hate the deal, but egypt has expressed concerns and while the uae has sent congratulations to iran, they also have shown concern over an arms race issue in the middle east. syria? well, am actual concerned more with syrian rebels as getting assad outta power is better for the west and the US. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/03/08/iraq-iran-nuclear-kerry-dempsey-/24602807/ http://www.wsj.com/articles/obama-parries-questions-on-iran-deal-from-arabs-as-well-as-israelis-1424475437 HA! Good Fun!

am not criticizing. am more curious about a sequel implementation. how would one improve given what we have seen? for instance, we see some question positioning o' the stronghold on the crit path. similarly, we could see divorcing any mention o' stronghold responsibilities from the critical path. how would such impact gameplay? thats what we were kinda discussing, yes? is not genuine white march news, so is kinda off-topic, but if folks wanna genuine consider future improvements, am game... as it were. HA! Good Fun!

has always been our understanding that the lengthy summer break for US schools is a holdover from days o' yore when so very many families were involved in agriculture. am not even certain where we heard such. funny thing is that our experience growing up were that harvest times were busiest, and just before winter as we scrambled to prepare for the cold months. we didn't do much schoolin previous to high school, but we did notice that particular with math, the approx 3 month summer break were enough to result in skill degradation. individual school days seemed over-long to us, and we suspect the summer break woulda' been better shortened, and winter and spring breaks lengthened. particular when we lived in a rural wasteland, the school day were excessive long. took almost 2 hours to get to school. similar to get home. school day itself were 6 hours. even our high school days were long, and that were with negligible transportation time. typical had sports practice before and/or after school o' multiple hours. and as hard as it may be to believe, we were having a paper route in highschool, so... 'course we only genuine got 'bout 5ish total years o' formal primary/secondary education from which to base such impressions. HA! Good Fun!

going to the stronghold and doing the critical path quest is not optional. that is a good thing, no? place the stronghold at a critical path quest point that cannot be accidental overlooked means that the player will be guaranteed to have stronghold features available to him, regardless o' the desire to use. is too much paternalism? dunno. optional or not, the stronghold required considerable developer resources and were a stretch goal. perhaps have stronghold be part o' raedrics hold quest and there is the possibility that folks will miss. am understanding why developers wouldn't want the option to miss. in any event, all o' the stronghold features is optional. you do indeed need fix eastern bastion... for free. fixing forces you to use stronghold interface at least once... no accidental mss. is that single critical path construction transformative? do you need become embroiled in stronghold by fixing the eastern bastion? you need not use any additional stronghold features. you don't need rest. you don't need hirelings. you need not build a single hall or hedge or wall beyond the initial freebie. you don't need concern self. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

oh sure, we get that the overall moviegoing experience may be less pleasant than watching at home. we mere state that it is ordinary to get carried along by crowd emotion. heck, watch football games can be more enjoyable at home, particular as we is a bears fan. we see at least one bears game a year, and we invariably do so in november or december. spend 3 hours freezing our californian candy arse off while sitting/standing next to some 300lb drunken clown who splashes us with cheap beer.. not that expensive brews would make better. and truth to tell, we can see the game far better on a HD tv in our own home. got tickets 15 rows back on 45 or 50 yard line? fantastic, but am still staring at monstrous monitors as much as the play on the field when teams is near goal line, 'cause angle is giving us a distorted perspective when teams is in scoring position. etc, regardless, when crowd gets itself whipped into a frenzy and you got more than 60k people all screaming or holding their breath or praying to God, Allah, Buddha or The Great Mother Spirit for all we know, it is... compelling. have walked outta theatres kinda liking movies w/o knowing why. am suspecting that palpable audience emotion contributed to our initial positive impressions o' the flick in question. or maybe we is just too darn sociable for our own good. HA! Good Fun!

*eye roll* you serious do not understand strawman. there is no intent attribute. did you attribute a weak argument to sawyer which he did not make? yes. did you then use that false attribution to diminish sawyer's position? yes. " It doesn't matter whether the misrepresentation or distortion is accidental and due to misunderstanding the argument or is intentional and aimed at making it easier to refute. Either way, one commits the straw man fallacy." -- from the skeptic's dictionary am getting tired explaining. there would almost never be a strawman fallacy if we eliminated any and all mistakes. you thought that is what sawyer said? doesn't matter. if you heard somewhere in an interview you cannot recall? don't matter. if you assumed, based on a stretch goal you cannot actual point to at the moment that... HA! at least if you could point to something sawyer said and then claim that your misinterpretation were reasonable, we could see nullification o' strawman. is one o' the failures o' logic that two people can read the same thing and come to different conclusions as to meaning. is often a reason why accusations o' strawman is misplaced on these boards. person 1 says "X." person 2 reads "X" and understands it to mean "Y." yell "strawman" every time somebody misreads or misunderstands that which is subject to multiple meanings is a ridiculous use o' strawman. even when is technical accurate strawman, is still often a silly criticism given the fluidity o' language. you didn't misinterpret. oh, and change the syllogism. change so that you are mere identifying gk observation about josh hate of romances, then use gk observation to conclude that, "I think that in this case, it's really just another representation of his irrational hangups that have marred the game." well guess what, you has simple taken one logic fallacy and replaced it with another. is still a loss. oh well, by inches we will get you to learn the fallacy you so love to spam (incorrect.) the rest is meaningless. honest. your personal message board impressions is a feel arguement, but even if you ridiculous bootstrap such silliness into legitimacy, there ain't no way you is gonna convince anybody that your message board experience is qualitatively better than sawyer's much less o' the combined impressions o' the obsidian collective which sawyer is having access to. you sure as hell can't prove some kinda luckman superiority o' board experience impressions. so, the obsidian developers made a choice for strongholds based on hard data or impressions from their years o' experience. in either case, is no reason to see your experience as superior. alternatives? again, you are being irrational. is precisely 'cause you are using irrational arguments and irrational thinking that Gromnir cannot prove to you where is the flaws in your reasoning. you don't have data or game tester observations. you got impressions from board experience. You is the one that needs prove. you gotta somehow prove to the obsidians that your gut-feels based on all your invaluable board experience is better than their feel. so, get cracking on that. is hopeless, but am curious to see you struggle... more. and keep working on strawman. you will reach enlightenment. almost by accident you is gonna need be right eventually. HA! Good Fun!

*sigh* the battle were made a joke 'cause o' slicken, not interrupt. hell, even sensuki backed off that point when we noted the slicken use. and again, we already observed the limited efficacy o' interrupt. we noted how even current, the interrupt can be effective when targeting slow attacks such as ogres and firearms users. use slicken so that you can go solo on an ogre? "now, against a single ogre, we could generate something close to a functional stunlock. similarly, against a gun-haver opponent, we would see genuine results from interrupt. however, against most casters, or any opponent with even average attack rates, interrupt were offering little in the way of results. a high crit character against a foe with a slow attack rate will see results. is... limited." you use video that illustrates our point (s). (edit: the 1:10 mark you find compelling further illustrates our point about using multiple party members on a single foe to generate functional interrupt.) this is a reading comprehension issue we s'pose. HA! Good Fun!

*chuckle* is funny. you actual is gonna try and throw gk under the bus? gk simple observed that a particular action by josh were weird 'cause o' what he thought were josh hate o' romance. you, on the other hand, did actual strawman. we need review? "Yet I've yet to see that many oppose strongholds as a concept at it's most fundamental level, and to even compare it to romances is just hyperbole, especially considering that Sawyer hates romances himself. I think that in this case, it's really just another representation of his irrational hangups that have marred the game." you did not attribute your misconception to gk at the time or thereafter. furthermore, you used the mistake as evidence that josh has irrational hangups that marred the game. that is classic strawman. oh, and there were no confusion by gk of sawyer and avellone as the quote we posted from avellone were clear new to him. is possible that he got his preconception from other sources who were confusing sawyer and avellone, but the one avellone quote we can find that is anti-romance were clear not what motivated gk's personal error. regardless, is a cowardly way to escape error. and your error does not diminish the strawman. even if you wanted to go all spineless and blame gk, it would still be your strawman. your second and third points... well point 2 ain't a point, and point 3 is so typical irrational, your feel is not feel 'cause they is based on experience? "No, what we've got is experience on these boards, Gromnir." that was your response to our criticism that you were using feel. obsidian feel is based on... what? less than your impressions gleaned from board experience? they got a multitude o' developers who has worked on games that included strongholds. they have more experience. IF your feel is not feel, than neither is theirs. if experience monitoring boards is not feel, then why would obsidian choose your experience over theirs? on the other hand, if your board impressions is nothing more than feel, then why on earth would your feel be superior to the collective impressions o' cain, sawyer, urquhart and other? any rational attempt to look at this has your arguments being shredded. *shakes head sadly* as we noted earlier, is nothing wrong with using other than rational. the problem is when folks who ain't rational is believing that they is. thanks for illustrating... again. HA! Good Fun!

for years we disliked woody harrelson. for us, most movies were made worse by his contributions. however, with no country for old men, zombieland and true detective, am admitting that seeing harrelson amongst the cast o' a given project is a selling point. weird. that being said, we could not force our self to finish watching the first hunger games movie. elizabeth banks and stanley tucci were kinda fun, and we at least got hints that there were more to banks' character than existed on the surface. as for the rest... even donald sutherland seemed to be phoning in his performance. watch a movie with a fan, or in a theatre with many fans, changes the dynamic. relative hairless apes is, by nature, social creatures. is painful for us to admit, but we can be swept along by the euphoria o' our fellow primates. heck, any sports fan will observe just how different it is to watch a football game (even english football) in a packed stadium as 'posed to watching solitary on tv in one's own home. parents watching movies with enthusiastic children has gotta be similar impactful, no? takes a rough sorta soul not to take pleasure in the happiness o' their own child. watching a netflix copy o' hunger games, we had only our own unvarnished pov with which to account. after not being able to finish hunger games viewing, we read the graveyard book by gaiman, just to convince self that all hope for the future o' YA literature were not lost. HA! Good Fun!

after your most recent strawman faux pas, one wonders why you would continue embarrassing yourself with the strawnir nonsense. am still looking for that josh post where he says he hates romances. in any even, Gromnir didn't make a feel argument. we were rational, which is difficult for you. we noted that even if obsidian had no hard evidence to explain their belief that strongholds is disliked by many, that still leaves 'em with their own feel impressions which appear to conflict with yours. so, as between embracing your feel and the collective feel o' the developers, why would the obsidians choose your feel argument over their own impressions? am not sure how we can make this stuff any more simple for you. HA! Good Fun!

it were a myth that one could create functional stun-lock with the bad math interrupt scheme. again, we tested. so did others. sensuki showed a nice video claiming to show stunlock, but what he actual had were a monk attacking ogres and elder bears who were disabled by pre-release slicken. there were other such examples o' stunlock, but it called for having multiple skeletons or you entire party attacking one foe, which were not a particular viable tactic for most combats. even the bad math o' a 20 perception player going against a 10 resolve foe would result in less than 70% success rate o' interrupt, which 'course required you to at least hit first. as gk notes, the duration o' interrupt is short, often too short to be meaningful against foes with quick casts or attacks. the only time interrupt were actual useful were when the math were broken. it weren't actual overpowered at that time, but folks saw all the successful interrupts in their combat log and believed that it were op. the fact is that even in the short-lived bad math time, interrupt were having limited efficacy in actual combat. stun-lock o' slow attacking opponents were possible IF you had a high perception character or IF you used many characters or summons to attack a single foe. when it were broken were the only time interrupt were useful. HA! Good Fun!

the optimistic op-ed pieces regarding iran were even more plentiful in 2009. how did that work out? in any event, we would love to be as positive as rostere, but history , particular the history o' the region, tells us that simple cave and give iran what they want is dangerous. iran has been working on breakout options for developing nuclear weapons for some time. this deal advances iran's breakout options while reducing capacity o' the west to use meaningful non-military options to alter iran behaviors. heck, the west don't even have viable inspection options to guarantee that oran is holding up their end o' the deal. israel, saudi arabia, egypt and other middle-eastern nations is less friendly to the US now than they has been in decades. numerous middle-eastern nations hate this deal for a variety o' reasons, so it don't appear to be buying stability to a volatile part o' the world and it sure ain't buying back the goodwill we has lost with our allies. nevertheless, in spite o' the fact that secular AND non-secular leaders o' iran were calling for "death to america" as early as this year, at least some folks on the streets o' tehran is more pro US than at any time since, well, 2009. trying to see genuine positives other than naive hope. am actual in favor o' negotiating with iran, and the west had to give'em something. unfortunately, the west simple rolled over and caved to iranian demands. is shocking that iran would be happy 'bout that? didn't even notice. lordy still with the outright lies. Gromnir posted quotes from imf and harvard economists who stated that russia's economy could collapse as early as 6-12 months if nothing changed, and we posted as a rebuttal to your ridiculous assertion that russia's enormous currency reserves (which has been significantly depleted and continues to dwindle) made western sanctions a laughable proposition. sanctions hurt. even kurdin admits the hurt. forthcoming glut o' iranian oil will make the hurt even more noticeable. sheesh missing forest for trees in yet another thread. HA! Good Fun!

btw, the expansion offers an ideal situation for measuring the value o' stronghold improvements, yes? after all, the developers have very limited resources with which to work. so, the hard questions regarding which features and content is most vital becomes glaring. in the expansion, rest bonuses from the stronghold are being improved, significantly. we expect other minor number changes. but the stronghold is what it is. take the stronghold as it is today, and make hard choices regarding what to improve. is exactly the problem obsidian were facing once they ran into implementation issues in the core game, but the expansion makes the tough choices stark and raw, yes? what should the developers sacrifice insofar as new content in the expansion to fix an optional feature that a noteworthy number o' folks seeming dislike altogether? yeah, when/if a sequel is made, we expect that serious changes is gonna occur... which is exact what josh has already said. the back to the drawing board ideas is gonna be much useful at that point. the obsidians has now done candlekeep in a couple nwn games and they had a base/stronghold in kotor2. along with poe, the obsidian folks have a considerable amount o' experience with strongholds, and they is gonna have painful intimate familiarity with unity. but changes to the stronghold now? we want stronghold changes too, but what will we sacrifice, if anything? HA! Good Fun!

yeah, am admitting that when josh changed the math for interrupt in build 480 (?), we could not get an "interrupt build" to work for us. the bb rogue had perception that were better than anything Gromnir could get outta a custom built companion, so we would create situations wherein our bb rogue were one-on-one v. the skaen cultist caster/healers. now admittedly, at the time, the interrupting blows talent were broken and doing nothing, which we complained 'bout. however, with an extreme high perception, we were able to generate, if we were lucky, 40% interrupt rate, thanks mostly to high crit rate. the thing is, the interrupted caster were barely slowed. heal spells have a fast cast time, so the interrupt had an almost imperceptible impact on a caster. now, against a single ogre, we could generate something close to a functional stunlock. similarly, against a gun-haver opponent, we would see genuine results from interrupt. however, against most casters, or any opponent with even average attack rates, interrupt were offering little in the way of results. a high crit character against a foe with a slow attack rate will see results. is... limited. well, that's the problem, yes? why is interrupt disproportional ineffectual compared to the value of increased damage from might or the increased attack rate from dex? that being said, 2.0 changes the equation. assuming we still get interrupt from perception, we will also be getting accuracy enhancement. the extreme limited usefulness o' interrupt cannot/should not be considered in a vacuum. still, the interrupting blows talent needs an adjustment if it is going to offer value. HA! Good Fun!

am agreeing that interrupt is a combat factor that is easily ignored. we do not overmuch worry about buffing concentration to avoid interrupts, and we surely do not build a character around an interrupt concept. we get far more payoff from doing more damage via might or increased rate o' attack from dex than we get from focusing on interrupt to delay enemy attacks. however, intelligence is already a relative strong attribute. am understanding that some folks hate speaking o' balance, but the developers, at the very least, consider it important. therefore, we do not see adding an additional quality to intelligence as being in-line with design philosophies o' poe. switch concentration to con and add a second interrupt value to resolve? dunno. regardless, we do admit that interrupt is a seeming wasted quality. HA! Good Fun!

am not understanding. optional nature o' the stronghold is not an excuse for it being bad. the fact that it is optional is the reason why adding additional quests to the stronghold is a poor idea from obsidian pov. optional nature is also the reason why once it were determined that stronghold implementation were not working as envisioned, there were a finite pool o' additional resources from which to draw from to improve the stronghold. while a stronghold were a stretch goal, its implementation were problematic. how much resource allocation could be reasonable for an optional feature that some folks disliked and avoided? so again, pull out the red marker and cut. show developers what you would cut from existing poe to make the stronghold better. as for the companions, none is needed to complete the game, and in point o' fact, we know that some rather intriguing content for durance and grieving mother were cut. heck, for all we know, content were cut from durance and grieving mother so that the stronghold could be improved to its current state. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

The problem with the stronghold, besides the fact it was designed by a blind monkey and look like an abandoned factory on the outskirts of São Paulo, is that it serves no purpose besides bonuses to sleep. As the crafting system is not implemented, you can not use it as in Oblivion, to improve skills, build weapons and equipment. There are no are quests associated with it. The fact that you are the owner of a HUGE amount of land is completely ignored. In fact, the player controls the ONLY ACCESS to the right side of the map. However, nothing seems to happen. There is no living soul on its territory, no peasant, soldiers, roads, security ... nothing. Absolutely nothing. The fact that the player home have been placed next to the stronghold is simple and pure laziness of designers. Probably there was not much money available and someone just suggested putting the house there, since it was also a promise in the kickstarter campaign. And again, like crafting was not implemented, there's no point rebuilding brighthollow heart, lab or forge. There is a thread in TTON forum called "What can be improved from Pillars of Eternity" and there are many sincere and real criticism there. This guy here made some excellent points: https://forums.inxile-entertainment.com/viewtopic.php?p=150814#p150814 It would have been much more organic simply delete Caed Nua and put Raedric Hold as the stronghold. Just put the Endless Path under the Raedric Hold and everyone would have been happy. a few o' the suggestions, such as having additional quests linked to the stronghold, were already rejected with reasonable explanations. perhaps you do not agree, but the reasoning were sound enough. other suggestions is, well, to be fair, petty or already addressed. example: we can now sleep anywhere within bounds o' the stronghold. most significant, however, is the resource demands. is zero-sum. so, pull out the old red marker and tell us what you would wanna kill in poe to make these other stronghold suggestions possible. obsidian did not build a great stronghold. bad on them. nevertheless, a laundry list o' alternative features is not all that helpful insofar as fixing. No, what we've got is experience on these boards, Gromnir. What you've got is feel that Sawyer supposedly has sources we don't. Or not. HA! okie dokie. regardless o' what you think obsidian gots, all you have is feel. you got impressions based on the board feedback you has witnessed? great. is just feel. is emotional. is gut-level. so, even if all obsidian had were feel, why should they listen to your gut as 'posed to the combined Feel o' cain and feargus and sawyer and a host o' other obsidians who no doubt had input? wacky stuff. HA! Good Fun! (edit: apparent too much fun)

again, josh has sources we don't. actual player behavior data? at the very least he gots observations o' game testers to be using. you got feel. *sigh* wanna go off on a largely irrelevant tangent, again? be our guest. HA! Good Fun!

...you've degenerated into dissociative identity disorder? Getting genuinely worried for you here. If I knew who you were, I'd probably have called someone. That's not entirely accurate. Some options will not appear if CHA is too low, such as Viconia asking to join your party. Others include Shar-Teel only joining a male PC, getting a +1 dagger in Candlekeep with Charisma 18, outwitting the Aboleth in the Underdark with Int 17, and so on and so forth. BG1/2 really isn't the thing to make comparisons to for this, however, as PoE's stat-based dialogue options draw pretty clearly on Planescape: Torment. Given the way stats grew in PS:T, you can't exactly say they were a major source of replay value there, either. PS:T's only real narrative-dividing decision is "do you join the Xaositects?" But honestly, even that's pretty flimsy. Linear, story-based games of this type just don't have a lot of replay value, at least not in the traditional, "see all the content," sense. I think the big reason to replay PoE is the same as the big reason to replay PS:T - you want to read the story again. That's fine by me. Replay value is overrated. About PS:T, though, let's be fair, because while the stats grew, the checks also did. PS:T:s real issue in that department was that WIS and INT was so much better and so much better represented in the game that it blew everything else out of the water. And in terms of replay value, the choices was more what you did or how you did it, rather than what happened, and I think that was done extremely well. There's never been a game that's made me feel so utterly terrible and disgusted with myself more than PS:T. First, he never said he was describing monkeys. Second, the statement was that very few primates can swim. This is still true, even if some individual primates have been taught by other primates. I wonder if an infant chimpanzee or orangutang will swim if you dump it in the water. Honest question. My bet is no, though. *eye-roll* 1) he quoted our "monkey cage" post in his response. 2) am thinking gk is adult enough to get that we were joking with him, just as he were with us. how old do you need to get on this ride anyways? HA! Good Fun!

*chuckle* funny. however, we will observe that you are describing apes and not monkeys. furthermore, http://www.sci-news.com/biology/science-chimpanzees-orangutans-swim-dive-01319.html HA! Good Fun!