pi2repsion

In case a save is still needed: I have one here from the very first zone in the game, the Encampment. My journal contains two entries: Find Sparfel in year 5645 (active) Collect Springberries in year 8467 (completed) All I have done is start the game with a new character, collect everything that isn't nailed down, gone through Heodan's conversation options, and sold everything that isn't essential to Heodan up to and including my wizard's armour (because he pays top price, which is why I have around 3000cp which will surely be nice once I reach Gilded Vale), and killed the wolves. It seems unlikely that you'll find a more minimalistic example than this. I don't recall whether this character was started from a clean start (i.e. start POE, create character, play character) or after returning to the main menu from playing another character. A subsequent single attempt to reproduce it from a clean start (all I could be bothered to do) where I just ran and killed the wolves immediately failed to reproduce the bug. https://www.dropbox.com/s/srerexx7b3071or/POE_journal_date_bug.rar?dl=0 Game version is Windows/Steam.

Think about it: You've decided to go with 8 companions and have the pick of the 11 classes. There are two healing classes in the game, Priest (more healing than damage) and Druid (more damage than healing). Unless you want to force every group that uses companions to bring along the same healing companion if the player doesn't play a healer, you need both of these. There are two tank oriented classes in the game, Fighter and Paladin. Unless you want to force every group that uses companions to bring along the same tanking companion if the player doesn't play a tank, you need both of these. The game has exactly one crowd control/debuffer class, the Wizard; while others can do a bit, nobody else coming even close, and while it isn't essential to have those abilities, it is highly valuable, and if there's no Wizard companion nobody but those that play Wizards have access to this, which will make a huge difference in game difficulty between those that play Wizards and those that don't. So a Wizard companion is an obvious choice and we are at five out of eight. The game introduces two classes that while inspired by other CRPGs are original creations and not direct analogues to the AD&D 2ed BG1/BG2 world that many players know, the Cipher and the Chanter. (Yes, the Chanter is somewhat like the IWD Bard, but bear with me). These classes are works of the imagination of the devteam unconstrained by players' expectations, they were stretch goals in the kickstarter, and they are very versatile, so it would be a really poor development team that didn't see the value in providing those as companions and that makes seven out of eight. What is left over? The Barbarian, Monk, and Rogue, who provide different ways of dealing physical melee damage and the Ranger, who provides physical ranged damage. Of the classes already picked for companions that focus on physical damage, two are likely to used as melee damage dealers if they aren't tanking (Paladin and Fighter, either as pure melee or offtanks) and two could go either way with the class having no clear preference where melee or range is concerned (Chanter and Cipher). This just screams Ranger. When you add that the Ranger is the only pet class in the game, we reach the point where only a moronic designer would pick the Barbarian, Monk, or Rogue over the Ranger for the eighth slot. Now, if this was D&D where rogues were needed for lockpicking, trap finding, and stealth, then the lack of a rogue companion would be strange, but given the rogue class abilities, that everybody can pick stealth and mechanics skills, and the limitation of making 8 companions with the 11 chosen classes, it really isn't. Barbarian, Monk, and Rogue are the classes that are needed the least when giving people flexibility in group composition and that's why they had to go given the constraints.

Well, they said last weekend that they expected to be rolling out patch 1.03 this week, but it is Easter. If they'd been a company in a Nordic country like Denmark, that would have meant they'd effectively have to deliver today as Maundy Thursday through Easter Monday are public holidays and trying to deliver patches with a skeleton staff is seldom a good idea, but they are a US company, so.... Quickly, somebody track down the holiday rules for whatever US state Obsidian is located in.

The 2nd level spell Infuse With Vital Essence can provide a really handy damage buffer in emergencies. If you are running a low deflection Wizard, this can be much more useful than Mirrored Image.

The main problem with them is that they break one of the fundamental conventions of CRPGs - that those people who are unimportant don't get names and that characters with names should be talked to if possible. In other words, that unimportant background characters whose main job is to be there such that a setting doesn't seem unpopulated are, at the same time, clearly distinguishable such that players don't waste time on interacting with them. By giving them names, even if with a different backlight, you are indicating to players that these are important and should be talked to as. To make it worse, it requires your very special soul reading ability and plays a sound and graphic effect when you do it, you know, just like that very important event right at the start of the game. Players who don't start out knowing that it is a waste of time unless you want to read flavour stories that are irrelevant to the setting and to the game's story are going to spend a lot of time reading/skimming them and activating soul reading just in case this next one is the one that actually does something. Eventually they will eventually learn it, but even then it adds to the time it takes for a player to get a quick view of who are important in a given setting, because the mind is much better at automatically sorting people by whether they have generic names that appear all over the place, like four commoners next to each other, or unique names, than by sorting them by whether their names have one backlight or another. It is a completely different issue with tombstones/testimonials. Those are normally used in CRPGs to list jokes, silly verse, RIPs, and real world references and not to provide useful information except in the cases where there's a specific mission to find some useful information on a tombstone, and they aren't spread out everywhere but collected in a few locations. Fleshing out the game with named characters that are utterly irrelevant to the plot instead of just adding a bunch more generic people with professions rather than names was, as far as I am concerned, a bad idea where gameplay is concerned. It helped rake in the money, though, so there is that. It just makes for an ever so slightly worse game.

If you look at the left hand of the character sheet, you'll see that a person equipped with a 1H+Larder Door deals damage both with his weapon and his shield.

Err.. The best ability of Chanters is not their weapon damage, tanking, invocations, or summons, but their flexible chants that they perform simultaneously with everything else, as you with a two talent point investment give significant endurance regeneration to all team members in AOE range as well as either buffing them in various ways or debuffing/draining all enemies in AOE range. Sure, you can dump a Chanter's INT, but unless you are going for some niche build where you don't buff the group or debuff the enemies except for those right next to you (e.g. if you are running a multi-chanter party), why would you do that? A Chanter makes a good tank and a decent damage dealer, but above all he is a force-multiplier on the group due to his chants.

It would be really strange if, after triggering from going below X, it fired off again if you healed to above X and then got hurt to go below, since the effect of it firing is to heal you. If it did, you would be immortal when fighting against anybody whose attacks hurt you for less than the healing effect when firing healed you. So don't count on it working that way.

Ah, but which will give him the most satisfaction?

Fortunately, we already gathered almost all the critical information on how to perfectly reproduce almost any of the bugs. This makes it a lot easier for the devs to fix these bugs. I have been programming mods for several games for almost a decade now and I can tell you that most bug reports done by players are next to useless, as they tend to leave out context-critical info. This is fortunately not the case here. Yes, it is usually pretty obvious when reading player submitted bug reports concerning technical problems which are from players who are professional software developers or modders and which are not, but we must remember that everybody submitting bug reports in the first place are trying to be helpful within the limits of their experience, and as a developer myself I would always much rather receive nearly useless bug reports than no bug reports at all, since as infuriating as they can be to deal with, knowing that there is a problem in the first place is half the battle. Too bad that the other half is the hard part, but well, you can't have everything.

I have a fun build for a Chanter off-tank, which I perceive as a Chanter who will sometimes be tanking one enemy and sometimes working as damagedealer, switching between sword & board in one weapon slot and either 2H or high-damage ranged in the other as preferred. It would be pretty suicidal to use this as the primary tanking character in a party, but since the OP is talking about off-tanking, it could for work him. It is: Fire Godlike/Old Valia/+2 lore background of your choice. 18 Might 3 Constitution 4 Dexterity 15 Perception 20 Intelligence 18 Resolve Wear high DR armour. Starting chants are Come, Come, Soft Winds of Death and Dull the Edge, Dull the Sword. Starting Invocation is whatever you prefer. (I like the Phantom for first 1st level Invocation and a damage dealing for second, but depending on party composition others might be more useful). The Chanter will of course take the two Chanter talents to gain constant friendly endurance regeneration in the exceptionally large radius and will pick up the damage dealing level 2 and level 3 chants when they become available. The result is a chanter that has very reasonable defenses, though he falls a bit behind in fortitude, while constantly dealing a bit of damage to all enemies in a large radius, who has few but powerful melee/ranged attacks, and who despite his low endurance is surprisingly durable due to the extra +4 DR when below 50% endurance. He is also good for conversation options due to the high Intelligence, Resolve, and Lore. You'd never want him as main tank with these stats, but as offtank/damagedealer? Try it out. You might be positively surprised. Alternatively, slaughter perception and resolve for constitution and dexterity for fewer conversation options, less easy time dealing with interruptions, more damage, and transforming into a soaking tank rather than an avoidance tank. A note on the endurance damaging chants such as Come, Come, Soft Winds of Death.... They deal fairly low damage and aren't worth much when fighting single targets, but as they affect all targets in the Chanter's Chant radius, which is huge with 20 Int, and as the game features ever larger fights as you progress, you'll swiftly come to appreciate the gentle drain. (And the not so gentle drain for the higher level draining Chants.)

And then you get bugs like this, which is caused by saving and loading a game, something that everybody will be doing on a frequent basis unless they are playing Ironman. ...You don't even have to go to the main menu, as I reconstructed it in my second post. As was later pointed out, merely quicksaving and then quickloading in a zone where a companion was recruited will do the trick where that companion is concerned. Which is why so many players are affected by the bug, because it is something that will happen for just about everybody in the course of normal playing, though being unfamiliar with the stat system of PoE the players might not notice it going on for some time. Anybody paying attention to the stats will notice, however. It is hard not to notice when an attribute score starts increasing mysteriously or the defense stats skyrocket. And you get bugs like the "double-click to equip if you already have something equipped (or casting a spell that makes you equip a magic weapon when you already have something equipped) wipes actives", which, let's face it, doesn't exactly fall into the category of "nobody ever foresaw players taking such actions!" Double-clicking to equip is the normal way to equip items for most players as it is the one that involves the least effort. There's a difference between giving QA a pass for things that happen rarely or in border cases and giving QA a pass for things that happen frequently for people performing actions that are part of normal gameplay such as saving, loading, and equipping items. For whatever reason QA dropped the ball on these issues and, as Obsidian is a responsible company, they will now be addressed. It annoys me, because I thought that both Obsidian and Paradox had gotten over most of their bad reputations for releasing products with obvious bugs, but it certainly isn't a deal-breaker. But please don't try passing off such fundamental bugs as something that one really shouldn't expect QA to catch. :D

Tombstones with cheap jokes, silly rhymes, RIPs for family members or friends, and RL references have been a feature of CRPGs since the mid-80's Ultima games, a place where game developers could have a bit of light fun without compromising the game, and choosing that staple of old-school CRPG games as a place for backers to put in their own silliness or respectful dedications was a great idea. The only people who get offended by it are those looking to be offended, and bad cess to them.

Whether it is too hard for them or not depends on their party composition and chosen difficulty level. By the time you arrive in the Gilded Vale you have enough money to hire one adventurer, or two if you picked up the hidden Disappointer pistol, so you can start the exploration of the temple with anything from one character to five depending on your actions without exploring any further than the village. By that time the player has already learned, if there were any doubt in the first place, that a bigger party is better than a smaller party. The developers furthermore ensure that as soon as you enter the Gilded Village you are directed to go to the inn to rest, and if you do that you'll likely pick up Aloth and you'll certainly get to see the adventurer hiring option when talking to the innkeeper. You are then further directed to go speak to Carla and may or may not pick up Eder after that. Once you enter the temple, the very first thing that happens is that you meet a helpful NPC telling you it is a dangerous place crawling with monsters. The temple layout is such that you proceed through a series of encounters of gradually increasing difficulty on the first level. Things only get really nasty when you decide to proceed to the second level, by which time you should know that this is a dangerous place even if somehow you'd missed the NPCs warning. And if it turns out you were overconfident and it is too dangerous for you and you didn't bring along any adventurers, feel free to run away from an encounter to hire adventurers to flesh out your party. Or fight to the death and reload. Or reduce the difficulty setting if e.g. you are playing on hard and think it is unfair that some encounters are hard. WHAT MORE DO YOU BLOODY WANT? A sign saying, "you must be SO tall in order to enter?" Another NPC after the first one saying, "You know, the first guy really meant it, are you SURE you want to continue exploring the spooky abandoned temple crawling with monsters without 5-6 characters in the group?" A ghostly voice exclaiming when you descend to the second level, that "NOW THINGS REALLY GET SPOOKY: You should be ready for monsters with high DR and teleporting monsters that attack your squishy characters. If you aren't, then regardless of how many you are or your levels, you are all going to DIE"... Look, I understand why some people would like the ability to see an enemy's level before engaging. I don't want that for myself, but I understand it and could easily see it as an optional tooltip. It wouldn't help much, as level is a very bad indicator of difficulty or whether your party would be able to succeed, since the danger of Shades is their high DR and the danger of Shadows is their teleportation, their level just isn't as important, but it would provide comfort and handholding for those that prefer being guided to the easiest encounters first, and that's no skin off my nose. HOWEVER, your notion that the Temple of Eothas being placed in an area that is immediately accessible is an example of bad design because ill prepared players who for whatever reason ignore all the warning signs, don't assemble a large party, try it with low level characters, decide to go dungeon delving before performing the fetch quests available in the village, and/or play on a high difficulty level, get slaughtered out of hand... Now, THAT, is ridiculous.

Unpaid beta testers are NEVER responsible for QA regardless of game. If you want to throw aspersions at anybody, do it at the people responsible for the game, namely those with a financial stake in the outcome and the authority to decide what is to be done during the development process, the game developers and publishers. If for some reason the developers for a game haven't gotten as much as they wished out of their unpaid beta team, the fault is not the beta team's but a beta process that for whatever reason wasn't up to scratch, whether because it was badly run, had too great expectations, or failed in selecting or attracting a good group of active betas. I am not saying that that was the case for Project Eternity. I have no idea how well the beta process was run on a weekly basis or how valuable the feedback was to the devteam, it may have been good, it may have been bad - I have no way to know. But I object on general principles to people taking aim at the only people involved in the game development process who contribute their time for free and have zero authority to change the outcome. It is unworthy of you.

This comes as absolutely no surprise, as the temple of Eothas is a different zone from Gilded Vale, where Eder is recruited, and the keep of Caed Nua is a different zone from Caed Nua, where Kana is recruited. There is no "inside" or "outside" in either place as far as the code is concerned, just different zones linked by different zone transitions.

Objection. The more information you have the better plans you can make (potentially, that is, if you are able to take advantage of it), but to have a strategy does not require complete information, neither in CRPGs, in Pen and Paper RPGs, in games in general, nor elsewhere. I have absolutely no objections to the idea of an optional colour-coded tooltip for people who prefer to be held by the hand so they don't risk attempting something that might be beyond them, thus losing out on both the frustration of trying and failing and the occasional joy of winning hard-fought battles that turned out much harder than one expected, but your argument that you can't have a strategic encounter without knowing the difficulty in advance is plainly ridiculous. The same line of thinking can be used to justify any lack of information as preventing you from having a strategic encounter, because you might run into something that you weren't able in advance to devise an exact counter for and, indeed, might not be able to easily counter with the resources you had available at the time, while another player with a slightly different party of the same level might find it a cakewalk. And yet, except for exceptionally simple games such as traditional board games, lacking full information is the norm and any strategy worth its name doesn't rely on everything working as planned but takes into account as well as it can the unexpected. And that goes for games, non-game military strategy, and indeed, anything that can be called strategy in the first place. Wanting to know the odds in order to plan better is natural in both strategy and tactics, but it sure isn't a necessary part.

It seems to come down to this: If you want great AOE damage dealing, some healing, decent buffing, and decent summoning abilities, go Druid. If you want great healing with good buffs and decent damage dealing, go Priest. If you want decent AOE and single target damage dealing, great crowd control and debuffing, only having access to a limited selection of spells at any given time, and spending most of the time using autoattacks with a small AOE component to the damage at the low cost of two talents until you reach a high level, go Wizard. If you want to be a summoner with good buffs and a goofy resource system instead of per-rest abilities, go Chanter. If you want single target god-mode damage dealing using a swiftly regenerating resource instead of per-rest abilities, go Cipher. Wizard is arguably a great class as it is, as the things it is good at, it is very good at - it just isn't what many of us expected it to be. --- As for balancing, I do not wish these things to change for POE. The game isn't a MMO where things like class balance are important. They can revamp their combat system and spells for the NEXT game based on the experiences with this one, should they feel a need.

I dont think any order-specific talent is very useful though. Not even the Kind Wayfarer's Strange Mercy talent that grants endurance to the paladin and nearby allies whenever the paladin defeats an enemy? Sure, it won't be that useful if you make your paladin into a tank with defensive stats and sword & board, but if you make him into a DW or 2H damagedealer with offensive stats? I have a hard time seeing how any of the five paladin orders available to players can be considered "righteous warriors of light" except as a joke. Darcozzi Paladini - elite agents of the Darcozzi family, known for their extreme loyalty towards the family member they serve, participating in intrigue and plots including against other members of the large family. Goldpact Knights - mercenaries adhering to a code of honouring their contracts. These are the mercenaries to hire if you want henchmen you can rely on regardless of danger or morality, as they don't let such minor issues sway them from what is important, namely money. In other words, they are the ideal mercenaries. Bleak Walkers - unyielding warriors devoted to the ideal of ending conflicts swiftly regardless of costs to others. These are the guys to call if you want to burn a village to save it for its own good. Or for your own good, for the matter. The Shieldbearers of St. Elcga - professional warrior-diplomats, who believe you get further with a kind word than a cruel. The Kind Wayfarers - Guides and protectors of travelers. Earn lunch money by selling maps, travel guides, and acting as paid tour guides.

Which part of "Path of the Damned" do you fail to understand?

Sounds like the same as my bug report: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/73449-stat-bonus-modifiers-can-erroneously-be-applied-multiple-times-allowing-stats-to-grow-beyond-intended-values/

I tracked down one way to reproduce this; I don't know if this is how it happened, but it could very well be as I know I quit to the menu at least once while in the Gilded Village to try my hands at creating some other character. Go to the location where a companion was recruited. [Only tested for Eder/Gilded Vale and Kana/Caed Nua] Save the game. Quit to the menu. Load the game. Observe that the stats of the NPC have now increased by the value of his equipment stat bonuses and modal actions like defender mode. ....and if you feel like abusing this or just testing how absurd it can get, save and go through the steps 2-4 again In the following save based on the Black Marsh save from the original report I went to Gilded Vale and did it a few times for Eder, then went to Caed Nua and did it a few times for Kana while equipping him with as many booster items as I could. I'm sure everybody will agree that Kana with 63/82/60/82 defenses, 18 Con, and 24 Int at level 4 is a pretty impressive chanter. (To be clear: Both Eder and Kana wore stat-boosting equipment during this test in both Gilded Village and Caed Nua, but only Eder's increased in Gilded Vale and only Kana's in Caed Nua when doing this.) Here's the save: https://www.dropbox.com/s/51v3byas7rh672y/Unexplained_stat_increase_explained.rar?dl=0

When I reached character level 5 I observed that Eder had considerably larger defensive stats than he was supposed to given his level, attributes, and equipment. I cannot say exactly when it happened as I do not save to separate save slots that often, but looking back through my saves, the following saves are the last from before this happened and the first from after it happened. I am running the game on Windows. Saves at dropbox due to forum attachment limit: https://www.dropbox.com/s/t5sgetpefdousrr/Eder_unexplained_stat_increase.rar?dl=0 The save before the discrepancy occurs is from temple of Eothan with about half of the first level cleared. Eder is level 4 and when stripped of all gear and buffs, his defenses are 36/53/31/39 - exactly what one would expect given his level and attributes. The save after is from the Black Meadow, two days later. Eder is still level 4, but now when stripped of all gear and buffs, his defenses are 58/63/48/51 and he has also gained +1 perception and +1 resolve (which are responsible for 2 of the reflex and will increases). The total unexplained increase is thus 20/10/15/10, +1 per, +1 res. It is obvious to suspect a bug with respects to stacking stat bonuses that fails to get cleared, as that is a much too common bug in CRPGs, and the suspicion is supported by the stat-bonus gear Eder has been wearing during this time is Fulvano's Amulet (+5 reflex) and Minor Ring of Deflection (+5 deflection) as well, after finding it in the temple, Pilgrim's Lasting Vigil (+1 per, +1 res). The observed discrepancy is thus a perfect match with the stats of Defender mode (with Wary Defender) and the three named items being added once and not cleared when they should be, so it seems very likely that the discrepancy happened at some time after the Pilgrim's Lasting Vigil helmet was picked up and equipped. That still leaves a considerable gap from that point of time in the temple to the Black Marsh save, but it is the closest I can narrow down the gap given the saves on hand. ...He does make an awesome tank, though, running around at level 5 with 96/73/65/63 defenses when defender mode is activated and he is wearing his equipment, but it is trivializing content.

On the original topic, regardless of the basic difficulty level of the playing experience, I am hoping for a few optional really difficult encounters: Encounters that are pretty likely to destroy anybody unprepared, even hardcore veterans of CRPGs with min/maxing as second nature, as some of us are, and will allow those with the patience for a good fight requiring them to exercise their tactical skills to the utmost some challenge. I am not so much thinking trick encounters where a simple trick renders the difficulty negligible, like Kangaxx the demilich from BG2, or something moderately challenging like the Twisted Rune encounter from the same game, but of encounters that are a real challenge, also to the prepared. The gold standard for such encounters in CRPGs probably remains the optional fight against the Mulmaster Beholder corps in the gold-box game, Curse of the Azure Bonds, or at any rate, that is the encounter that I can still remember vividly these two decades hence despite all the other CRPGs I've played since then. For those who weren't around at the time to appreciate that masterpiece of a set battle, it was under the 2nd ed AD&D rules, and your party of 6 level ~10 adventurers kicked open a door just to end up face to face with - if I recall the numbers correctly - 15 Beholders (providing the usual bunch of disintegration, flesh to stone, and other fun ray attacks) 10 Dark Elf lords (fighters with good damage and better armour) 12 Zentarim High Priests (liked spamming Slay Living, Hold Person, and other nasty cleric spells) 8 Rakshasa (mages one and all with a liking for lightning bolts and with lots of magic resistance) ..You were given an option to flee rather than fighting them, though, and as it was indoors it was possible to use walls to your advantage rather than having to face all of them head-on all the time. The developers weren't utterly heartless. There was also a single unique consumable magic item in the game (Dust of Disapperance) that, if you had saved it for the occasion, would allow you to trivialize the fight - so everybody had the opportunity to finish it, at least the second time around, if they knew in advance to save that item. Be that as it may, that's the sort of encounter - in terms of difficulty level when not using the Dust of Disapperance - that I'd love to see one or two in one or two optional fights. Something that challenges the player to do better and to exceed whatever his standard tactics are, that allows him to coast through the rest of the game.

A question - exactly how does this differ from other EULAs? Isn't it common for EULA's to state a court that the user agrees will have jurisdiction in case he has to sue, to prevent the company from being obligated to defend in any court in the world under whatever conditions might apply there? I am pretty sure that I've seen words to that effect in every EULA it has ever been my displeasure to skim. Most commonly it is some location in the US due to the prevalence of US distributers (California is frequently used, so I assume they have the laws most beneficial to the distributers). This is not because they want to compel customers to travel to the US in order to show up in court, but because they aren't morons and want - insofar as it is possible under national and international law - to defend themselves under one common standard of law. I don't recall any company, ever, writing in its EULA that it will give a reciprocal agreement not to pursue the user in other venues. That's, again, because companies aren't populated by morons. Should a user violate the EULA to such a degree that it makes economic sense to hire lawyers familiar with another jurisdiction in order to lay suit against a user in another jurisdiction, something that is only extremely rarely the case, they will do so.