Cantousent

The big one? No combat XP and no trap or exploration XP. We didn't really end up with combat XP, although the bestiary XP threw out a bone for people. The lock/trap/exploration XP wasn't necessary. I firmly believe that folks only notice those things being absent because they're looking for them, but it is what it is. I still think the game is great and the trap/lock/exploration XP is so trivial it doesn't matter. If it makes people having it in the game, alls well. I'm only in Act 3 and my people are already maxed.

I would just like to point out that I am, indeed, not bald. Back to regularly scheduled programming. :Cant's combing his thinning hair icon: Oh, and not just to be on topic but also because I believe it, I actually think some of Sawyer's ideas that didn't make it into the final build were quite good and would have been better. ...But I love this game. I own that I would be a fan regardless because of an undeserved kindness I once received, but Fallout New Vegas is one of my top five favorite games and Pillars of Eternity looks like it might make it on the list. I don't have tons of time to play, so I only recently entered Act 3, and I can't speak definitively until I've finished, but it's looking like it has real legs so far.

Okay, time to shut down this thread. Feel free to start another thread if you'd like. Even complain, but let's all not make this personal. ...And *don't* start trying to out each other's real life information.

A number of reports on this thread. The only truly flaming post is the one that started the thread. I'm leaving it for a couple of reasons. First of all, having given some extra keys to people, and one of them given to me by someone else, I know that a lot of backers used extra keys as gifts. For that reason, as... Concordance I think? mentioned, the OP might not be a pirate. However, I will add this commentary: I would hope that someone to whom I gifted a key would not engage in this kind of rant. Second, while the OP might be a troll, he might also merely be an unhappy (and clearly irate) customer. We have a tradition of allowing irate people some latitude to vent on this forum. So, I'm going to check in on the thread later and see how it's coming, but I'm going to keep it open. Please don't rampage on one another while I'm gone. To the OP: I would say that it's true that PoE requires more micromanaging in my experience than the IE games. Not much, but certainly more. Some of your issues don't seem to make sense from my experience, but I might simply have misunderstood your points. However, I would suggest, and I mean this in all sincerity and without rancor, give yourself time to cool down, think about how the mechanics work in the game, and try it again with a cooler head. If you still hate the game, come back and, armed with more experience and a level head, make your observations. This game might not be for you, but perhaps your some of your initial complaints are not completely insurmountable. You might still enjoy the game very much. Since you already have it, why not give it a shot?

Apart from someone reporting something in this thread, which then forced me to read it, I don't see anything grossly horrible. If Sawyer were a regular member, I would have shut this thread down as engaging in personal attacks on him but, much as I am unabashedly and unashamedly a Sawyer fan, he's a developer. He's got to take his lumps. Still, try not to go overboard in your Sawyer scorn. ...And don't bash other members. No matter how much you bash the devs, please be gentle with one another, good forum members! Don't poke anyone in the eye or pull anyone's hair. Please don't call specific members names and the like.

I did a few searches. This problem looks to be the same as yours, but I'm not sure. This user had a problem that looks about the same, including OSX Yosemite and Intel Iris Graphics. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/73454-mac-osx-yosemite-crash-on-startup/?hl=%22osx+yosemite%22

heh, I never realized that mechanics impacted the seal spells. Just goes to show you. I didn't see it on the tool tips for the seal spells and so I thought might was much more of a governing factor for them. ...But I trust you. Hmmm, next run, there's a good chance I'll stack Durance with it then. On normal, Durance has tons of awesome healing spells that are unnecessary. I still love hurling spells, but for a lot of battles, auto-attacking does the trick with the odd AoE smackdown. I usually play normal then next hard and, if there's a setting, next hard until I get the hardest setting. It seems to me that PoE has real legs, so I've got a few runs left. I'll probably do a chanter and rogue. I'll keep Durance my mechanical monkey for the chanter run and then make my rogue the primary locksmith on that run. I like the twist on things with the skills, though. I like the fact that I can give my front line tank just enough lore to use some scrolls that are most useful where he's standing in contact with the enemy. I like the fact that I need to have a spread for stealth for all my characters. Frankly, I was so tickled by stealth that I probably pumped too much into it. On the other hand, there are some bad guys past which my party can stroll at leisure. It's just that they'll walk past the bad guys and fall victim to the trap if I don't have a mechanical engineer with them. :Cant's rueful grin icon:

The only real spoilerish thing regards the identity and duration of questions for the joinable NPCs. Anyhow, my first run is a mage, pretty much always my first character given the option. The game did a great job giving us a couple of joinable NPCs early Anyhow, I was then in the first town with Aloth and Eder, and deciding which skills went with whom. If you don't have mechanics, the game has a certain tedious element. When you're not beating your head against a locked door or trying to figure out how your 1 mechanics skills monkey can use 5,000 lockpicks on a chest, you're disarming traps all over the place the easy way, which is to say, by taking several flaming arrows to the chest. I had to choose someone to stack a few points of mechanics to pick locks and I certainly didn't want to miss any NPC interaction, so here comes Aloth. Unlike some folks on these boards, I like Aloth. Being a mage, he's kind of redundant and can't seem to figure out exactly who he is, but he's got some great intraparty dialogue and it seems that Eder has a flame burning for one of his past souls. All's good. So, since you miss out on a lot of stuff without mechanics, and since I see that Lore tends to play more of a role in dialogue than mechanics, I stack my PC with Lore and dish out my mechanics skills to Aloth. ...But you . I bade Aloth a fond farewell and packed him off to the stronghold to sip a few brews with the only adventurer I'd hired up to that point who was... you guessed it, a rogue I'd made to be my mechanical monkey until she got squeezed out to make room for an NPC. So, my max mechanics at that point was 3. Everything stays locked and every step might be another trap which, incidently, are far more likely to knock out a character than actual combat. My party members were going down faster than a 2 bit courtesan in a 12 dollar brothel. The doors aren't that big of a deal because I know you'll find keys to anything vital. The chests? Well, no biggie. There's plenty of good loot and, on normal, the game is super easy anyway (*Not* a complaint). Traps? Egads, my characters needed to start wearing kneepads. So, my lesson of woe? After progressing quite a bit afterwards, I got tired of the slog and went back to an earlier save and jettisoned Sagani. She and her dog can spend quality time baby-sitting the overpaid and largely useless hirelings for the rest of this game. I'll just have to finish her quest in the *next* run, I guess. Next time is either hard or PotD, so I better square away how some of this works beforehand because on the job training can be a real bitch. EDIT: It wasn't so much "wow" as "woe."

Use of caps duly noted. We'll just assume that it was 'passionate.' :Cant's wry grin icon:

The only reason I found this thread is because I've assiduously been benevolent regardless of consequences the whole game and I want to know when I've maxed out benevolence. Don't get me wrong, I'm like folks have been saying since the first page. I choose the benevolent option because that's a reward in and of itself. ...But there are times when I could just as gladly choose honest or diplomatic and feel as good about the choice, but benevolence is the my prime RP objective. So, it's not that I want to be less benevolent. I'll still choose it as my first response, regardless of which weapon might or might not be available, but I might also make other choices once I've sufficiently defined my character as one benevolent SOB. Of course, I'm not *completely* sold on knowing which options yield 'benevolent' or 'honest' or 'cruel' results. On the other hand, even that's an option. So, as others have said, no big deal that I'm not always mechanically rewarded for being the 'good' guy. Being the 'good' guy means you sometimes have to give up mechanical rewards, otherwise being the 'good' guy has no meaning in a world where 'good' is judged by your actions and your intent and not by some mechanical alignment straightjacket. EDIT: ...And, as if to bring the point home to me, I just arrived somewhere where a couple of people decided to pick a fight with Eder and I didn't even blink to forgo the diplomatic response to point out their asinine behavior for RP reasons. Not saying it'll end up in a fight, but I had to alt-tab out because this thread immediately sprang to mind.

As long as it's viable, I'd stick with the build you enjoy. I plan on a melee rouge PC in another few runs.

Nice assist, oh sparkly feline. Don't feel bad, oktav, I did the same thing a while back and I already *knew* how it worked. It can get confusing with multiple buffs on some of the gear.

The way it works is that you have a Grimoire equipped on your character. You can also have a Grimoire with different spells selected in a quickslot. You cast spells from your toolbar by clicking on the roman numerals associated with the spells. You can click on the quickslotted Grimoire to switch and then, after a brief cooldown period, cast the new spells up to your overall limit at that time. You can edit your grimoire either by clicking the button on your toolbar or simply by right clicking the grimoire in your inventory. I hope this helps. EDIT: You can't switch spells in and out during combat, so it might be a good idea to set up one Grimoire with standard spells you use all the time and another one or two for specific encounters you might face from time to time. If you set up the ultimate Grimoire of Fire, it's going to be a bitch when you face steep burn resistance.

Some locations show up after taking the appropriate exit, as you've heard. So, if you want to get to the Esternwood from Gilded Vale, you'd have to exit east on the Gilded Vale map since that's the direction Esternwood is from Gilded Vale. Some locations, however, are given directly to you and you're able to see them on your map immediately. I won't give those example now since it would be a spoiler.

Thanks for rooting out the answer, enwin.

:Cant's poking his head in icon: I'm only playing on normal for my first run, so mileage may vary, but I've had no real problems so far, the only delay in upgrading everything in my stronghold is the time it takes, not money. I've scoured and learned every single spell in every tome I find for both mages, and I still have money to burn. ...And I actually keep a couple of extra grimoires set up for particularly vexing resistances/special circumstances so I can switch at the beginning of a battle. The extra spells can come in handy. So drop the coin and learn the spells!

There isn't an image, Kuragari.

Good God, Monte! :Cant's at a loss for words icon: I'm forty-five and I began my DnD experience in 1979. On Guam. That means about 1975 in modern world terms. So, I literally started in the first edition. So, I qualify as an ol' skooler and I think 3.x is the best edition. Of course, I disliked 4th and never tried 5th or 6th, so I can't comment. Just saying that for many 'grognards,' 3rd was the best edition. ...But, please, leave our daddy's genitalia out of it. On the other hand, 'setting' is a poor argument. A skilled designer can make something great out of a lackluster setting, while even the best of settings falls apart in the hand of a poor designer.

In Pillars of Eternity, you have health which is the larger stat. You have a lot of health. You also have endurance, which is a smaller stat. A percentage of your health is your max endurance. Your endurance is what keeps you on your feet per se. Your max endurance is whatever your current health is at any time. Think of endurance as the amount of 'hit points' you have per rest. There are many spells and abilities that replace lost endurance. Your health is your 'life force' of sorts. It's the outermost limit of your ability to survive. You can be knocked out of a battle when your endurance goes down to zero. Your endurance will go up and down during battles, but as long as your health is above one, you'll recover. However, your health only recovers on rest. There are few other abilities that replace lost health points. So, let's keep it simple and say you have 1000 health and 100 endurance. During the battle, you take 101 damage. You're knocked out and recover after battle. Your endurance quickly goes back up to your amount of health. So you have 899 health and 100 endurance. Remember, your endurance resets after battle and through spells and abilities, but it's harder to replace health. After several battles, you only have 77 health. Now your max endurance is only 77 because your endurance is limited by your current health. Typically, you must rest to replace lost health, either at an inn or with camping supplies. Resting also replenishes your 'per rest' abilities. Now, assume in that battle in which start at 100 endurance and 1000 health and you took 101 damage. Let's say you took 35 points of damage and then someone uses an ability to heal you for 25. You don't get the health back, but you get the endurance replenished. Now you have 90 endurance and 965 health. You take another 35 damage before someone uses an ability to replenish another 25 endurance. You now have 80 endurance and 930 health. Finally, you take 31 damage before being healed to replenish 35 endurance. You now have 899 health and 81 endurance. Over several battles, you might lose all your health, in which case you'll be 'maimed.' If you take more damage at that point, you're dead. There is no resurrection. Please, if someone sees a mistake in my math, correct me. I'd appreciate it. Hope this helps.

Can anyone tell me if they've got the same issue with the Guardian Stance modal or if I'd simply misread it? No no! I'm not trying to pawn off the QA issue for one of you guys to do... I'm not! I just want confirmation and then I'll let you write up the report to get credit if it's a real issue. :Cant's polishing his halo icon: EDIT: whew, it's an aura that activates during combat. Remembering that, I started combat with a nearby luckless bastard to test and... voila! It works just as advertised! I'm a doofus.

No worries, blue. Keep us posted.

Well, thanks for the heads up. At least most of the modals seem to mechanically work, but losing the particle effects is a bummer. I mean, it's all part of the atmosphere, you know?

Give it some time, LPG. It's not that I really mind the odd bumping of a thread from time to time, but you should at least give it a day. On the other hand, It just happened that I can level up Eder and had him take Guardian Stance. He can switch in and out of Defender, but he never seems to have Guardian Stance activated. His accuracy should go down by virtue of the modal ability as I understand it. I have Sagani in my party also and she leveled up at the same time, so I gave her vicious aim. That does show the icon and the accuracy immediately goes into effect. I guess I'll look to see if the guardian stance thing is a known issue. In the meantime, I can confirm the lack of particle effects, even though the actual mechanics seem to be working for vicious aim. Ugh. If I find something when I do my search, I'll let you know. :Cant's rueful grin icon: EDIT: I can confirm that entirely exiting the game and restarting and reloading doesn't return the particle effects or sounds. The Guardian stance doesn't appear to have any effect on nearby companions. It also doesn't have an icon. So, defender works as advertised, but likewise the effects aren't in place. Well, thanks for letting me know. I certainly won't be choosing Guardian Stance now! lol EDIT 2: I decided to try deactivating the Defender modal ability before I leveled up Eder. I then took Guardian Stance and tried to activate it, but no dice. Frankly, I wasn't intending to take Guardian Stance anyway, so it doesn't really hurt me, but it is interesting.

I'm going to merge your earlier thread about this same issue.

It always is curious to see how the devs thought the line should be read or understood. It can be hit or miss, although I've understood the reasoning behind everything I've seen so far. I like the fact that we have actual dialogue instead of a wheel or something that doesn't even write out the lines.