Shevek

I've done no bounties or endless paths (or finished all of Defiance Bay). I didn't even do Raedric yet. Im still too strong by the time I hit Dyrford/Rhemen/etc in this PotD run I'm doing. I feel like I need to be just hitting 4 when I walk in there. I was almost 6.

As an aside: I remember Heart of Winter for IWD. Also helmed by Sawyer. It was so short that they put of Trials of the Luremaster (an expansion for the expansion) for free.

What was the interesting combat situation in the Gnoll Stronghold in BG1? Did I interrupt a Gnoll mixer or something?

The xp is still too high. All non critical path xp should be 25% of what it is now.

Trash combat is very much a part of the IE experience.

Its not free.

Its one expansion in two parts.

Its supposed to be a xpack like Tales of the Sword Coast was to BG1. That was not a super long xpack. I went through all of it in way less than 20 hours

Its one xpack in two parts. I'm expecting 6 to 10 hours per part.

The first expansion will be split into two parts. First part will be this summer I think. The second part will be later this year. People who backed at expansion tier on KS get both parts.

The problem is that players get too much accuracy and defense per level. If they could maintain enemy stats as they are now and drop player acc and defense gain from 3 to 2 per level, then things would be better difficulty wise

I agree 100%. I also expect to play a game when I purchase it. If I want a game that plays itself, I will fire up Progress Quest.

Beamdog can't even fix weapon sets in the EE versions and the companions they have made are cringe worthy.

Party AI is a waste of time. Better enemy ai is what we want.

After having played through with the previous patch (on Hard) and experienced the latest patch in my recent PotD playthrough I have two fairly straightforward suggestions. 1. Suggestion Number One: Low Difficulty Post-Act 1 After Act 1, the difficulty takes a dip. Some have suggested rebalancing encounters. I disagree with this. A much better solution would be to nerf advancement a bit. Currently, we get 3 Accuracy and Defense per level. Just drop that to 2. It won't make much of a difference during Act 1 but it will be felt as you progress. This should take way less time than retuning the entire game after mid act 2. At least consider making it a checkbox or something. As a side effect, this should make items feel much more impactful since they will be a greater source of accuracy. Similarly, 1 handed style will feel like less of a waste and heavier shields should feel more useful. 2. Suggestion Number Two: PotD Stats Checkbox I think it would be nice if we could had the option for PotD level enemy defenses with the encounter numbers of lower difficulties. So, maybe some would like Hard encounter enemy numbers with PotD enemy stats. Again, this could just be an optional checkbox.

Roxor writes through a ranty personality. That review is one long turd and reading through his verbal masturbation is jUst a waste of time.

Ya, but how many actually read through all that bile?

The review that from the codex that people will actually read will come later.

Some start at 4 even if you are level 3 which is annoying .

BG1 had A pretty crappy story. BG2 was mediocre but Irenicus' VO and those cool dream sequences kept you going. PoE certainly beats BG1 and 2 on plot but I think that PoE could learn a thing or two from BG2 when it comes to storytelling (delivering the plot).

I think the current implementation is good for a part 1 (introduction to the system, etc) but the xpac and PoE2 should have more clever AI. For the xpac and part 2, AI should be varied. Some should be smart enough to either break engagement (or even eat the engagement attack) and go for the squishies. Not all should be clever enough to do this though. There should always be room in encounter design for the dumb ass enemy. The key is to keep enemy AI varied so that would additional elements to the encounter design. Some of this is already in there (fampyrs seem to bum rush the squishies) but the key is both to add more in the xpac and also add in better enemy disengagement tactics while also keeping in some stupid enemies as well. Also, I cant help but wonder why more people dont wonder at the real issue with PoE combat at present: the over abundance of xp which allows for leveling and the low difficulty tuning of the critical path (enemy resistances, etc).

The itemization is fine and I think the enchantment system is great. Its just that the IE games' +1 extra attack looks sexier than x1.25 attack speed to some folks.

Theres no reason to limit prebuffing. There is limited resting already to prevent rest spam and spell durations are short. The combat state flag should go.

They should have animated the trees at least - like ToEE.

There is no need for a story mode when one can just cheat.