tinderbox

Okay, not my game but I'm being lazy. My standard attack formation would be something like this. Typically I play my party in very close support of each other, for buffing/debuffing, and try to exploit flanking opportunities myself by sending other party members around the tank characters. One thing I have been enjoying a lot is using Aloth on a flank to do fan or line attacks across a bunch of foes. It works. I think it rewards manouvreing. I'm sure Sun Tzu would approve? I suspect some of my playing style could be the influence of Total War, which demands that units support each other and rewards flanking and rear attacks and charges (which makes a lot of sense in the context of field warfare). In TW an unsupported unit is often toast really quickly.

Yeah, there's that with one or two enemies attacking the tank and the rest of the enemies in a line behind. example: But I'm actually talking about ring around the rosey. Example: I had a better example but forgot to save the screen shots as my ranged characters were nearly against my tank but the enemies kept targeting my tank. Also, my other characters aren't wearing any armour. I was able to move my other characters down below the crane and mop up all the wizards and continue around and then help out the tank. Pretty easy fight when the enemy concentrates on one character (tank) and ignores the rest of your party. Hopefully a modder will put in some enemy AI scripts to attack more than one person. Okay, I have a better example below. Following the yellow arrow, Lady Valtas completely ignores my other party members who aren't wearing any armour and goes around and attacks my tank. I'm not even trying to exploit the A.I. You guys split your party up that much? Holy cow. I've always kept my party fairly tightly together. Even in the IE games I've always done that. It just wouldn't seem ... I dunno ... it just seems hella weird to me.

As someone who participated early in the first thread ... I do feel that the difficulty level is gradually decreasing as I progress through the game. I think I'm deep into act two now: I just took out the Sanitarium challenge and am wandering around Dyrford doing the stuff from the backer beta. I noticed that finishnig the Sanitarium that while attrition was steady, it was never really dangerous, even though my party started in a bad initial position for the encounter and I was able to play my way out of it without too much difficulty. Primarily, the paralysis attack of my PC cipher is proving really powerful. I was able to use it to great effect in the spider cave at Dyford Crossing, esp in the boss fight against the spider queen. I think that length of paralysis needs to be shorter. Or it needs to be a higher-level mind ability so the cost to use is higher. Poison damage against your characters is not nearly as threatening either and that curtails the threat of spiders and wood beetles an awful lot. I noticed a similar tendency within the backer beta when I played it through just before the end. Hitting level seven and eight, the BB content is a bit too easy. Act 1 seems to be really well balanced for challenge. Act 2 is less so.

OMG, a pony as a pet in the game. That would be totally sweet-as. Still absolutely loving the soundtrack Justin... so additional (bonus!) tracks would be super-awesome but you guys must be so, so busy so if it's not possible in the near-term, that's understandable.

In terms of resource management during a hectic dev process with a limited budget, I can understand why the Stronghold may have got a bit less love and development than optimal. That's certainly what it feels like, and that's okay. But now that the game is out I do want to de more thought put into refining -- and deepening -- its systems as the expension material is produced. It's a bare pass mark right now, but I want it to be much, much better.

I never enjoyed the necessity of pre-encounter buffing in Baldur's Gate, especially once you hit Throne of Bhaal.. On the other hand, I did rather enjoy the in-battle challenge of applying buffs and de-buffs.

Maybe you're just getting caught doing it by someone in the area?

Well, that's why Matt is right about the fog of war advantage as well. It should be evens. It would be even more interesting to have some foes *starting* from stealth if that were possible so that the party isn't necessarily able to see them to begin with. That could invert the first-mover advantage that the player normally has in a quite challenging way.

I'd like to see smarter AI responsiveness in combat as well. A tactic where foes hang back -- or fall back -- forcing you to come to them would make for very interesting tactical play. As an example, Total War AI does this to a certain extent to take advantage of high ground in Shogun 2.

Yeah I actually did that as a RP thing. But a mechanic for it to have some in-game effect as well would be neat.

I would love to see more interactivity with the stronghold. A few servants, even if they just have written rather than voiced dialogue, and maybe construction workers hurrying back and forth while you have a construction phase going on. Perhaps a base number of hirelings too, even two or three. A captain of guards or something? Just make the place a bit more lived-in once you get it going. Right now, it's just a bit ded. I was also thinking, what if you could add to your library as you go? You collect all these books and times. What if you could add them to your library collection and slowly increase your lore resting bonus as a result? Could be cool. Better than selling them.

Gosh, there's a lot of angry people running round these fora right now looking for random things to get angry about about. It's not healthy guys, you'll give yourselves a heartie! Try the MST3K mantra a few times, maybe.

Devs did mention in the backer beta forum during the beta feedback process that they would continue to make and release character portraits post-full release. I can't recall the precise scheduling -- I don't think it was actually stated with certainty -- but the implication was it would be part of the pre-mapped patch schedule at some point down the track. So we should see new portraits "soon" ei: before the expansion pack hits.

More accurately, it revives the wearer after they've been knocked out (ie: Endurance falls to zero). Only once per combat though. If charcater health goes to zero, your character is still kaput. Usually you seem to get back between 30% and 60% of total Endurance. I've not followed it very closely as when it does happen the situation tends to be a bit frantic. :>

I reckon that the voice work for Eder is top-notch. Whoever voiced that Eder nailed it. Just the right balance of caring-cynicism-dry humour in the timbre and intonation. Durance is another I'm really rather impressed with so far -- ambiguous.

I think this is a great idea, too.

I just had my entire party flattened by the Searing Falls cave boss fight. Ther's definitely a bit of a learning curve on hard, even if you're experienced with the system from the beta and have a ton of experience with IE games. Put a step wrong, and you'll get nailed. It seems very hard to recover once you're on the back foot in the big fights. Perhaps more importantly, your opening is vital. I know it says that in the PE strat guide but it's worth reinforcing that so often it's the key to winning the combat. I do think some of the standard combats are a little routine (but that was often the same in IE games as well). I found clearning Od Nua level 4 a bit of a doddle, for example, after finding lvl 3 a real trial. I'm not sure how Obsidian would go about putting more challenge into those encounters tho -- I don't think more creatures would be the answer. There's not much difference betwen wiping 5 Xaurips and wiping 10 once you've got their measure. At the other end, I would fear that bumping stats would make the boss fights impossible -- for me, at least. (That's why I'm not doing POTD -- yet)

BAdler. Kudos and many thanks to you and the Obsidian team for all your hard work. I really think this needs to be said a lot more around here.

I liked Kivan! >.> *sadface*

As someone who DID pay ofr and play the beta backer, I'm fnding this hilarious. The difference between the beta and the final release -- especially that first beta -- is like light and day.

Justin, I just wanted to compliment you on the excellence of the soundtrack. In particular, Come Soft Winds of Death is, I think, extraordinary. The layering of woodwind, percussion, brass and strings and the vocal choir is amazing. It makes something that's much more than the simple sum of its parts. It gives me goosebumps every time -- and goosebumps don't lie. Thank-you for making such fabulous music.

This. I have a Cipher PC and I only put her to the frontline as a last resort right now. I'd actually like to melee her more, but I'm still trying to work out the most efficient way to do that because, well, fragility.

Sensuki, who did a hell of a lot of testing during the beta backer stage and knows the combat system really well, has made a series of short vids about character creation for Pillars of Eternity. One of those is for a melee Cipher build. Some really useful tips, I suggest checking it out. Link:

Paradox are doing the KS distribution, yah. I'm in Oz and I got an email last week (Mar 27) saying mine was on the way. So maybe there's hope for you Euro dudes as well.

Wow, yeah, that's very different from me. So even with Defender and comparable armor, you'd have low 80's whereas i have 111! I can believe you'd have a way harder time of it than I'm having! Maybe my 111 is bugged somehow. The problem is low 80s still allows him to tank anything in act one and two with no issues Hahaha -- I wish!