TrueMenace

Past couple of days I've been dabbling with the Cipher. I have no qualms with their ability to generate focus, they are really flexible in that department and you shouldn't have trouble gaining enough of it for your powers. However, their powers are all over the place. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't Cipher's supposed to be one of the "hard hitters" like the Rogue? Their powers don't reflect that. Their powers are either DPS focused, Affliction-Based focused, or a mix of the two. If your unfamiliar with the Cipher, a lot of their powers are "interesting" and "creative" in the sense that you get to target an enemy OR ally and if that attack lands, it will then jump in an AoE around the target hitting foes with other secondary effects. Ok...pretty cool right? It's got that whole "mind" power flavor to it where your attacks invade the minds of your foes and it spreads. Now here is where it gets messy. For example, you get these lame beam spells like Antipathetic Field that is very difficult to execute considering you have to get as many enemies between yourself and another enemy. It's too tedious to execute in battle. You need to move your cipher to the sides kind of, and then cross your fingers that this stupid beam doesn't fry your allies because friendly fire... (Cipher beam spells are are a nightmare to use...). Other powers don't really even do their intended effect. Amplified Thrust is supposed to push enemies backwards but for me, it doesn't work. Has anyone gotten this power to work? It just doesn't work and the damage is a joke. I really like the idea behind their abilities, but the execution is never there for me. It's always a bit lackluster. I don't know what needs to be done. Higher damage or what? Maybe I'm playing them wrong or I'm dreaming, can someone enlighten me? How are you guys feeling about Ciphers? They are not discussed a lot. I feel like it's going to be the least played class since their Powers are not super intuitive at a glance?

Monk, Barb, or Rogue. Not sure yet, was almost certain on a Monk, but now I'm loving the Barb and Rogue as well.

Interacting with all the companions and bro-mancing Aloth (he's going to be my new Garrus I hope)

Wait, what does this exactly mean? Does it mean that on launch day we can actually bind stuff to our extra mouse buttons without having to do some voodoo registry editing?

I would LOVE for them to implement co-op functionality of some sort in the possible sequel.

They balanced the game around having a 6-man party. Well so did those classics, yet it was doable. It should be very hard, but not impossible. People want these new crpg's to be like the classics after all, right? I'm not saying it's impossible. But it's not their goal to design he game to be beaten with any # of party members (e.g. solo runs), they balance around the norm which is a 6 man party. Up to the player to figure out how to solo the game or run with fewer party members. Nothing wrong with that. Devs can't balance every encounter depending on how many members are in your party. That would take tons of man-hours to balance. That's up the players.

Didn't know that lol....really? I don't know if I own a single game where you can't name your save file. Yea, I'm not sure if the devs are even aware of this. It's a pretty big Quality of Life improvement they need to address in the post-release patches.

Either way guys, a rule of thumb that should be ingrained in your brain is to...SAVE OFTEN. Bind a comfortable key to Save and Quick Save. Love that key. That key will be your friend. Save often boys... #saveofteninrpgsofthismagnitudebecauseyouwillregretitifudont Edit: My only MAJOR gripe at the moment concerning the save system is that you can't NAME your saves which is ludicrous for a cRPG.

You were level. 12 for that fight, don't think that was fair for Medreth

They balanced the game around having a 6-man party.

Ask Josh how long his recent Hard playthrough lasted. Saw some screenshots on one of his instagram pictures and it was ~58'ish hours on the final floor of Endless Paths of Nua.

I PM'd you.

He is not a game reviewer, Check my previous post which is the last one on the 2nd page.

Update: The guy IS NOT A REVIEWER. Here is what he said afterwards: "Yes - I've been poking around this today (with help), and the crashing I experienced is indeed because I have a 32 bit OS/CPU, which Pillars doesn't officially support. Kind of impressive it runs stably at all, considering most 64 bit-only games won't even boot. Edit: To clarify - I'm not reviewing the game. I'm a features guy, and I'm playing on my own time to evaluate other coverage opportunities. I can't speak for what anyone else is doing, but there's all kinds of reasons press might need early access to do their job besides reviewing a product. Prepping guide content, capturing video... any number of special projects."

I guess it's easier to release everything at once, at least from the logistic point of view. The manual comes with every copy of the game (box or digital). Releasing it now on their site is a no-brainer. It's a friggen manual after all.

Why can't Obsidian just release the digital manual RIGHT NOW? It won't contain spoilers and people who are unfamiliar with the game can get a headstart way in advance. win/win situation.

This is the guy's system specs: "2011 Macbook Pro booted into windows via Boot Camp - so for all intents and purposes it is a Windows machine. 4GB RAM - 1GB nvidia gfx card. 32 bit Intel CPU." YIKES, that's a terrible system. No wonder he got crashes.

Watching now, thanks! I'll get some ideas for my video. Thinking of showcasing the Cipher, want more people to get hyped for this "under-the-radar-awesome" class.

Well, you are getting the Prima Digital Guide which is even better...

Not necessarily. The idea is to have "safe" class builds. Not showcase "niche" builds that can be rendered useless by the Day 1 Patch. A good example is showcasing a tanky fighter. Can't screw that up and attribute spread is simple and safe.

How much can we cram in 5 minutes? Honestly, no clues yet. Need to first read what others want to talk about per video, then organize a draft.

Hello fellow Backer Beta players (and lurkers). I have a very interesting idea to propose to you guys. So listen up! I had an idea yesterday and it would require the entire Backer Beta Community. The idea is to create a series of short, concise primer videos for the newcomers/uninformed before Release Day. These videos will summarize the game mechanics in an intuitive manner and showcase "safe" class builds with their attribute spreads and suggested abilities and talents. These videos are meant to help EVERYONE. Got a friend who heard about the game, show these videos to him. These videos will help market the game to a "broader" audience. A lot of gamers are scared of these type of games or misinformed. It's our job to let them know that this game is easy to learn and understand. Yes, of course there's a manual. But wouldn't it be better to hear all that good stuff from you guys? These videos will be shown everywhere on the internet (NeoGaf, Codex, Gamefaqs, etc.). A newcomer comes across the |OT| thread on NeoGaf, asks what this game is and bam we have these series of videos CREATED BY THE BACKER BETA COMMUNITY. Free marketing and informing the public. The end game for us is for Obsidian to promote these videos on Twitter. We need them to spread OUR WISDOM. We all played the BB, we all have our opinions and strong bias towards certain mechanics, therefore we'll need some structure. Thus, I'll explain how we need to prepare. Each video will need to be concise and short. Below, I will list topics for each video and what you need to do is give feedback on what you want to talk about. When you post, reference the video you are discussing. Write as if you are talking in front of a camera to an audience. This will make it easier to compose a draft for each video. Video A: Game Mechanics. (HP/Endurance, Afflictions, Attack Resolution, etc.) Needs to short and concise and easy for anyone to understand quickly. Video/s B: Suggested Class Builds by the BB Community. Here is the fun part. Post your tried-and-test class builds. Give the exact attribute spread, and suggested talents/abilities and skills. Talk about the class in general, and the purpose of your build and how it comes together with your attributes. These class builds need to be short and easy for anyone to watch and "copy". They need to be not "super niche" builds. One video per class. Generally the most safest class build will be used. But alternatives will be suggested. So an example, the Fighter class video will showcase their typical "tank" build, but an alternative DPS build will be suggested and how you can build that. Again, write as if you are speaking to someone who doesn't have a lot of knowledge of the game. Essentially, someone wants to make a Paldain, well they watch the Paladin video and see what attributes they should pick and how they will generally play out. That's the goal of each video. Alternatives to each class build will also be discussed at the end of the video, but not heavily emphasized. KISS = Keep It Short and Simple. So, post your class builds, specific attribute spreads, a description of why you chose that and what your build accomplishes. We all will have to decide only 1 final build per class however. Video #C: Game Nuances. Things you have learned over the BB (tips and tricks of the trade) (kind of like the tips in the loading phase of the game but in a video format!). Can't think of any other topics to talk about at the moment. In conclusion, these videos will hopefully stand the test of time. 1 year from now on a Steam Sale, people will hear about this game and want to know how to play. These videos will help. Ideally, if the videos do actually get made and are high quality, Obsidian can tweet them out to get even more heads turning and listening. I may have missed some stuff to talk about, but hopefully I got my "idea" across. Let me know what you think and start contributing. As for who is making the videos, I'm not sure yet. Sensuki has stated he is up for it. But it would be great if we had "dual" or "tri" commentary for the videos. Edit: I hope I elaborated on what the idea is, but feel free to help me out on that haha. I may have just written a wall of nothing.

4.5k MMR dota 2 player here for over 8 years. I know how you feel. Only PoE can break that curse my friend.

I ran into Torment: Tides of Numenara yesterday when I discovered this game, too. I only found their Kickstarter page and didn't see any info on there under updates as to it's release so I bookmarked it and moved on and found this game. The reason I even found these two games is because I was thinking of buying BG:EE on Steam or GoG. I played the original two back in the early 2000's after PS:T, but never got past more than probably 10 or 15 hours of gameplay for whatever reason. I've been really wanting to sink my teeth into an in-depth story and character-driven RPG and realized BG was probably going to be my best bet. And since I never got my personal badge of honor for having completed at least one run-through with BG, I went looking for it. I had no idea companies were working on these kind of projects. I'm over-thrilled! That feeling when you discover the game you've been waiting for your entire life... I wish I could re-live the day the Project Eternity Kickstarter was announced. Glad you discovered this game. We need to spread the word.

Holy **** I'm from your location.