Shevek

Hopefully one handers dont become totally useless with a universal percentile reduction in damage (as opposed to armor based) and a pure reliance on integer based reduction on armor.

Honestly, I liked the armor system as it was. I cant think of many people who were that baffled by it. Whatever they do, I hope it works. Combat in 364 was feeling pretty good. Why jeopardize that with a change like this when a few tooltips could have cleared up any confusion?

Ya, it rewards you with difficulty. You get to pat yourself on the back and regale your friends with stories of your exploits.

Please make it so I can turn off crap like Ancient Memory (from the log, I mean). That things eats up the log like crazy.

Any new info on the update?

They need to get over the "Bug-sidian" rep they have built up. Even after South Park, which had minimal bugs really, they were still getting nailed for bugs in the press. So, let them tale the time they need. If they have to use their own funds a bit, it doesnt really matter; they will make that back easily. Ultimately, putting out a game with few bugs after having broken away from the publisher model will make a statement that they need to make.

At 40 bucks, this game is a steal.

With the Wiz, the focus on aoe is crippling since its hard to use effectively and not obliterate your own party. Some aoe is ok but you cant have a class thats built around friendly fire skills. Its a bit unfair that the chanter/cipher get infinite spell casting AND many of their aoe spells ignore friendly targets. Seems to me that the wizards, who work with expendable resources and have limited utility, should be the ones with more aoes that ignore friendlies.

You get your companions at like level 1 or 2 (act 1 of the game). So you can build them up more than you can these BB characters.

Well, BB characters are themselves suboptimal.

You dont have to tank with a fighter (on hard, dont plan on ever playing PotD). My most successful playthroughs have been with a dps fighter rather than a defensive one. Also, you dont have to focus fire. Often its best to have your ranged go after certain enemies while melee handles others. I have to agree on the Wizard. I experimented a bit with a Druid and find it to be better overall.

What are you talking about? Cipher gets... Psychovampiric Shield Pain Link Body Attunement Borrowed Instinct Tactical Meld And boatloads of other spells which are great for melee. Edit: Would I make a melee cipher? Probably not (too active) but they are definately not devoid of defensive abilities.

Yes

-I like Brute Force as-is to be honest. Its not a gamble anymore since it uses best of (deflection or fort). -I dont think the issue with the enemy specific damage talents is the size of their bonus (its already high). They dont really need accuracy tacked on. Its just that they are so situational. I can see this being something the ranger selects on creation (favored enemy!) but not as a talent. Also, I think they should be mutually exclusive. So you pick one and the others become unselectable.

I am slightly color blind - hence colorblind mode. The only option that exists with regards to selection circles is to hide them.

It doesn't really bother me either way but a few others have mentioned that they want the circles to be smaller. I am not sure if the devs have commented on that.

Look up the Monk, Katarack21.

Perceived Area of Concern: Currently, I find that some talents seem quite good and and others seem somewhat lackluster. Everything is fine up to about level 8 or so. Then all the good ones are used up and I find myself picking from a set of talents that I don't find very appealing. Solution A: To address this, one suggestion I have is combining many of the less attractive talents. Here are some examples: [Graceful Retreat]+[Fast Runner] Combining these two will make the talent useful for more than just engagement but also more useful for disengagement (less situational). It still is not an overpowered talent but it would be more attractive. I can see players selecting this. [Arms Bearer]+[Quick Switch] Even with these combined, I am not sure how many players would select this talent. Still, combining the two would make the talent more attractive and they fit together thematically. [Deep Pockets]+[Potion Use] Potion use is pretty good but deep pockets is not something I would ever pick. I think this would make the talent more attractive. [Marksman]+[Close Shooter] It doesnt seem right to have ranged builds have to expend two talents to be good at distant and close ranges (especially if they have to get the reload talent too). This is less a suggestion of talent attractiveness than the other suggestions though. Solution B: Another suggestion I have is to add in more talents that improve specific class abilities - especially modals (since they are active all the time). For example, what about talents to improve Guardian Stance and Zealous Endurance? Also, what about talents to make other modal talents better? Like, Improved Cautious/Savage Attack? These can be simple numbers tweaks or add new functionality. I can see something like Improved Penetrating Shot added a pierce chance on projectiles. Solution C: Have talents that give extra uses of abilities make the abilities better. This is basically about Bonus Knockdown for me. So, instead of just adding one more use, how about one more use AND having it cast faster or last longer or something. Musings: I do not find the extra spell talents very good. I actually feel like its a waste to get a bonus level 1 spell. I mean, thats a wasted talent. Not sure what can be done about those. The bonus dmg versus enemy types seem too specific/situational since you can't benefit from that in most encounters. Like, this is different from the bonus elemental dmg talents since you can build for frost and do that all the time. It seems like thats a hold over from the whole ranger favored enemy thing from DnD.

Ciphers can build up focus with ranged weapons too.

It took one of their guys 2 afternoons to fix the abuses mentioned in this thread. That tells me that making improvements to the mechanic is not especially difficult or time consuming. We may be losing sight of this being beta. Stuff needing the occaisional fix is normal. In any case, I hope we can find ways to offer more constructive criticism. (Edited for increased positivty, hehe)

Alright, its up and thats a wrap. The dungeon is very short (more of a large crypt). I show how I down the last guy using cheapness since hes flanked by two crystal eater spiders (which do way too much damage). YT will have the HQ version in a bit.

Maybe, I have a conference this weekend but I should be able to find a free moment. You arent missing much though. The last dungeon is the weakest part of the beta - mainly due to enemies having over powered abilities. There are spiders that do aoe frost attacks that do more damage than most single target attacks. There are also ghosts that constantly launch powerful projectiles at your weakest party members. Its very beatable but the encounters arent as well tuned as the rest of the beta.

Attributes are far better in this game than the IE games. In the IE games, certain stats were useless beyond certain values and others were useless in certain ranges (so, there was little difference between 8 and 15 strength other than item requirements/encumbrance or little point in having dex above 18). Some stats that you think mattered in IE, actually didn't. For example, intelligence only became useful in the recent EE versions of the game (before then, it was possible to cast level 9 spells with really low int). Wisdom was crap in IE, imo (the manual said it affected spell casting and saves but it didn't). Charisma was useless (if you really wanted charisma, Ring of Friendship set to 18 when it was time to sell stuff). So, compared to that, PoE is FAR FAR better. There is an impact on your character for every point spent and more stats are of value to more classes than in the IE games. Still, a couple stats feel a bit underpowered (specifically, Dexterity and Resolve). Resolve is feeling slightly better since they slowed the speed of combat (so, fights last longer and make the duration bonus from Resolve more meaningful) but I still dump Resolve on many characters (I keep it at 10 or higher on some but I do take it to 3 on many). Dexterity is currently bugged. Once it gets fixed in the next patch, I will test it. I think it may be useful on some classes where you need fast casting (like a Priest). Also, items are better with regard to attributes in this game since they give flat bonuses rather than set your attribute to a certain number (so, gloves of ogre might gove you +2 might rather than setting your might to 18 or whatever). This ensures that your attribute choices matter no matter what gear you get (so, you can't dump str and then completely reverse that with a Str belt or gloves or whatever). As far as deflection, the entire attack resolution system is very different. It feels real good to me (especially with recent changes to combat speed). Basically, the mechanics for Saves and Armor have been aligned. Also, there is MUCH less missing and you can sometimes Graze enemies instead of Hit or Crit them. Read about it here. I do not feel this limits character customization as much as other factors (especially since deflection values have recently been tuned up across the board) but I do think that character customization could be better. When they announced that the game would not have multiclassing, they said that they would approximate multiclassing through other character development choices. This has not happened (and probably won't). Still, I find that I can make a couple build types per class. EDIT: Looks like I might not finish this playthrough. They have an update coming out tomorrow, haha. I will try to record it tonight since the last dungeon isn't very long. I want to show enemies attacking eachother (ghosts vs. spiders) and some of the more challenging enemies but if I stay long at work, that may not happen. Ah well, hope it was useful to you guys.

Uh what? My adventuring day is like twice or triple as long in any of the Infinity Engine games than it is in Pillars of Eternity. Really? Perhaps it comes down to playstyle but I am going through way more encounters before resting in PoE than IE. Seari: Its also to get all my spell protection/protection busters back, to get the hastes back, etc. Also, a bit of a separate issue, but IE was all about going in, dieing, and doing do overs with different memmed spells (less so in successive playthroughs).

"I guess you like mediocrity." Nope.