demeisen

I hope they don't go too far in spell pruning. Having a large selection is fun. If nothing else, it helps replayability, since I can depend on different ones for a subsequent game. ​ ​Removing a little near-redundancy might be OK, if in exchange we can have some nice non-combat utility spells. *cough*lightspellsandpitchdarkdungeons*cough*. ​ ​

​ ​The expansion helps, if you opt to up-level the content when it prompts you. Start WM1 as soon as you can (around L7 I think? - about where you were getting bored with the base game), and it's a challenge on PotD. I'm not sure where the up-scale prompts are (start of WM2 maybe?), but select them when you can. ​ ​On the other hand, a lot of the base game content is still very easy on PoTD, once past the early phases of the game. So, a mixed bag, but there's a lot of fun to be had in WM. ​ I do hope it's not as easy to over-level the content in PoE2. When you're not over-leveled for the fights, it's a pretty fun combat system. ​ ​

I didn't read this whole thread, but: I can commiserate with r2d23. My experience is similar.​ I only have a "light duty" understanding of how the combat system works, nowhere near the depth of knowledge that a lot of players here have, but on the balance PotD still seems excessively easy. There are some exceptions to that however, and they can be a lot of fun when you encounter them. ​ ​I don't have good ideas for how to address it, but I do really hope that PoE2 provides more difficulty. (WM was better than the base game, IMHO, as long as you hit it at an appropriate level). As others have expressed, it mustn't be cheap difficulty obtained simply by cranking enemy HP and resistances. It needs to be tactical difficulty. At its best, I feel that PoE1's combat system can indeed shine. The core of it has good ideas; I don't think it's fundamentally a wrong direction or anything. ​ ​It's a tricky thing from a business perspective too. If the world is at least partially open, then it's easy to encounter areas you are not prepared to deal with, even with a rough separation into 3 or 4 acts. I don't mind that, but many players will rage-quit if things aren't spoon-fed to them. Also there's a large contingent of players who rather than wanting deep challenge, want to "feel powerful" by easily mowing down everything in their path - and they want to do it on "hard" mode, so they can feel godlike. If you cater too much to folks like us, you risk alienating other kinds of players, and not selling enough units to have a viable ongoing business. ​ I do hope it's something they work on improving for PoE2, hopefully without detracting from the great aspects of PoE1. And hopefully in ways that feel tactically satisfying. ​ ​

Also slightly surprised how sparse the 10-19 bracket is. ​

Cool, thanks. I had mostly been thinking of instant effects, but that makes more sense as a general answer.

Consider this sequence of events: 1. Char A: Starts casting an accuracy buff 2. Char B: Starts casting a spell 3. Char A: Accuracy buff fires 4. Char B: Spell fires For character B's spell, is the accuracy for the attack evaluated when he starts to cast the spell at point 2, or when the spell fires at point 4? I'm going to guess point 4, but that's purely speculation on my part.

​ Another small "not-a-bug inconvenience" is related to weapons that have a chance to dominate. E.g, the soulbound sceptre. I think it should disable the dominate effect if there is only one enemy remaining. Trouble is, right now you get into this cycle: ​ ​- Finish off all but one enemy ​- Attack final creature ​- Whoops! It's friendly now due to the dominate proc, and all my soft characters have decided to cuddle right up to it. ​- Reshuffle formation, wait for dominate to break, or smack it again to make it hostile. ​- Hit it again to kill it... Whoops! Now it's friendly again... ​ ​You can work around it: don't attack the last creature alive with that character, or switch weapons. Not the end of the world, but if it was a single if-test to avoid proc-ing in that situation... ​ Last but not least... thanks a lot to all the people who've worked to improve PoE post-launch, for so long now. There's clearly been a huge amount of work in all of the fixes and improvements. It's a vastly better game now due to all that support, and that is really appreciated! ​ ​

Welcome - the game is indeed great fun! While it has flaws, it's one of the best RPGs in ages. ​ ​About the expansions: I'd recommend installing WM1/2 before playing. WM is great - in some ways better than the base game - but it sort of attaches into the middle of the game, so it's awkward to play if you've already finished. Either you need to start a fresh game or load up an older save. If you install before you start, though, you'll encounter it naturally as you play through. ​ ​Another new player tip: you can change the difficulty setting after you start, but only among the lower ones. You can't move it up to PoTD (the highest setting) after starting. All the difficulties are, IMHO, misnamed by about one step, so I'd recommend considering normal to be easy, hard to be normal, and PotD to be hard. Then you can pick to suit your preferences. Since you are an experienced player of BG/IWD/NWN, I'd be inclined to recommend PotD, which makes the combat much more fun in Pillars. Otherwise it becomes rather easy after the first few levels, even if you're not power-gaming it. Hard is more suited for people who skip a lot of the optional quests, but you seem like the sort to play a high % of the game's content. No matter the level you pick, difficulty tends to be spiky: lots of not very hard battles, interspersed with some much harder ones. ​ Enjoy! ​

Heh, well, it seems like a stat that borders on meaningless anyway. For what little it's worth, ​I didn't find the page I was looking at before, but a few others that allude to it are this one, which claims 29% of players are under 18, while "more gamers are over the age of 50 than under 18". Or 26% of gamers are 50+, although that's data from 2008, and gamers have been skewing older over time, so that's plausibly consistent with ~29% in 2016. It was only about 9% over 50 in 1999. I tend to think it's too vague to mean very much, though. E.g, it might be a pretty different result if you limit it to PoE-like games, as opposed to 2D phone Candy-Crush type. And I bet you're right that they're underrepresented in online forums even relative to how much they play. ​ ​Anecdotally, most of my friends are between 30 and 65. It seems like the older ones who didn't grow up with games don't play them now. However the ones who did (including many who were teens or 20's in the 1970s when gaming was growing rapidly, e.g, on Atari 2600's, Apple II's, TRS-80's...) never stopped playing, and still do today. The retired set with kids off to college have more time than they used to. They don't tend to play twitch games though. I see more puzzlers, TB or RTwP RPGs, and complex simulations in the over-50 crowd I know. (Who are probably not representative of that age group in general...) ​ ​

​ ​Indeed, they do get some powerful offensive spells. OTOH, they tend to be shorter range than the Wiz spells, and far shorter range than the Druid ones, so they are a bit more limited strategically. (But I agree, I would not mind seeing some Priest changes). ​ ​Speaking of using the same spells a lot: I feel Spell Mastery in its current form tends to lead to more boring fights. Since you have to select 1 spell of the level to master, you tend to cast it in almost every fight, since it's "free". I understand why they limited spell mastery from how it used to be ("any spell from the level per encounter"), and I agree that was too powerful, but the change had the side effect of making many fights cookie-cutter.​ I'm not sure what to suggest though. Maybe spell mastery = 2-3 more casts of the level per rest, but they're still per-rest? That's not really ideal either, but at least you wouldn't sling the same ones in every fight because they were free. ​ ​

Thing is, PoE already has friendly fire, just for (some) spells. The AI already has to be aware of FF effects. For your own team, you can choose their positions and targets to minimize the chances. The FF chance could be dependent on the separation of the target and the friendly, and the accuracy of the archer. Shooting into a chaotic tightly packed melee of 3 of your own guys and 1 enemy is a dangerous thing to be doing. Shooting at a lone priest up on a ridge has no FF risk. ​ ​I wouldn't even mind seeing similar for melee weapons used in close quarters with friendlies. Swinging a two handed sword around within a meter of a friendly doing similar carries some risk. ​ ​

Got it! Thanks a lot for the explanation. I think armed with that info, I can extend the concept to various other spells.

​ OK, so, a value applied each 3 second tick, with a remainder for a partial one at the end. What's the other duration in the description about then? E.g: ​ ​"AoE Duration: 34 sec Effects: Friendly AoE: +13.6 Endurance over 1.7 sec" ​ ​That's one duration more than I'm grokking. I'm thinking the whole Consecrated Ground lasts 34 seconds, so that'd be 11 ticks plus a remainder. And each tick I'm getting... 13.6 endurance? Is it that the 13.6 is split between T=0 and T=1.7 relative to the start of each tick? If I understood your last example right about "+7 at T=0 and +2.3 at T=1s", it sounds something like that. ​ In that case, the 1.7 in my example is not what I had been thinking it was, so would not decrease the effective rate of endurance gain.​ It only changes how the gain is distributed within each tick. Which makes more sense, relative to what I had imagined from the textual description. ​ ​

The base description says, "+9.3 Endurance over 1.0 sec". I am guessing this means that every 1.0 seconds, the AoE restores 9.3 endurance to anyone standing in it. With the current stats of the priest, the description says, "+13.6 Endurance over 1.7 sec". If this indeed a ratio of X endurance restored per Y time, then both the numerator and denominator have increased with the extra int. The base rate would be 9.3 / sec. The effective rate would be 8 / sec, which is somewhat slower! It operates for more total time (34 sec as opposed to 20 sec base), so would restore more total endurance, but at a slower effective rate. Do I misunderstand the textual description?

​ Looks like a curve heavy on the 20's and 30's range, which is younger than I'd have guessed. I thought the 50's and 60's range would be larger than it is above, given various factors (PC game instead of console or mobile, gameplay inspired by older games, fixed ortho, etc). ​ ​I found a few web sources claiming that around 29% of all video game players are over 50. (Who knows what "video games" actually means in that context). I have quite a few over-50 friends who are still active PC gamers, so it doesn't seem like that group has simply stopped playing. ​​

Absolutely - it can't be taken as any sort of rigorous statistical data. It's a self-selected sample of people motivated enough to frequent the forums, etc etc. Still, I think it'll be interesting to see how it falls out. It's not utterly devoid of meaning even with the methodological flaws of an ad-hoc forum poll. Not really going for peer reviewed PhD calibre research here . Edit: Also, I'm curious to see what the upper end of the age spectrum will be. I'm sure among the total PoE player base there are some in the 80+ bracket, but the forum crowd is a small slice of the total player base.

I'm curious the age distribution of PoE players. Since PoE evokes and modernizes an older gaming subgenre that isn't often seen any more, does the player base skew towards older folk who grew up with 80's and 90's classic CRPGs? Or are there many younger players who've discovered the subgenre and like it? ​ ​This is wildly unscientific, but might be interesting. If there is a high percentage of "new blood", that could bode well for future demand for this style of game. If it's a largely older player base and the nostalgia market, that market might die off with us ​ ​Edited options for clarity around boundary ages. ​

​ ​Methinks you sell them short. I like a good number of those ideas, at least as options. E.g, a small chance for bow FF on front-line melee, if they are aiming close to your own crew. ​Darkness is another one I've raised before too; I hope that makes an appearance (when situationally appropriate). ​ ​

​​ Probably fair to say, but on the other hand, does that not still mean that someone likes the old game, albeit for their own reasons? ​ I ​agree with your take on PoE vs BG2, that PoE has improved on BG2 in some ways, and improved on BG1 in many ways.​ I suppose one might consider a game in absolute terms, or relative to its own era. Some games that were legitimately great in their day end up far surpassed later on, due to UI improvements or what have you. Others that were great in their day manage to hold up as enjoyable much later on. I feel BG2 is in that category: although it's been surpassed in various ways, it's still a fun experience. I'd say the same about Dungeon Master (the 1987 game from FTL), and some others: they show their age, but are by no means unplayable today. (In fact, Almost Human's Grimrock series is to Dungeon Master what PoE is to BG. They both modernize an old but quite solid formula). ​ ​Also agreed with you about the BG2 writing. ​

Cool, chanks, Loren Tyr and Dr <3. That's exactly the info I was after. Agreed +40 is a lot of deflection, although my wizard's base deflection is quite low, so even with +40 he's still 10 or 15 short of my Paladin. I might favor the Mirrored Image form that's a bit less deflection, and expires on a timer, but doesn't go completely away after a hit.

​​ ​What does this really mean? E.g, Wizard's Double gives +40 deflection "until hit or critically hit". Does this mean the entire +40 goes away the first time anything above a graze lands (which could often be the first thing that tries, for squishier characters)? Poof, all gone? Or does it decay with increasing numbers of hits to that character, and if so, in what manner? ​ ​The description sounds like the former, but sometimes the descriptions are a little misleading. ​

I didn't use one for my first play through, did on my second, and now wouldn't play without one. I build mine as ranged, rather than melee, but I think both can work fine. I haven't studied the details of stats and builds to the extent that many people have, so I'll defer to others' wisdom there. But here are some abilities that I've found highly valuable: Whisper of Treason. L1 ability, so available right away. This is enormously powerful, and I use it through most of the game. Only 10 focus, and getting a powerful enemy fighting for your side is huge. First, because of the damage it dishes out. Second, because of the damage it takes: sometimes this can destroy it completely. Third, because other enemies attack it instead of your own guys, so you take less of a beating. Forth, because it can often get a frail party member out of trouble if they're getting hit by something they can't stand up to. Fifth, because it can help preserve battle lines when something breaks through. One of the best abilities in the game, IMHO. It's a Swiss Army Knife of spells. Mental Binding. L2, 20 focus. This can take many types of powerful enemies temporarily out of the fight, and at the same time, it's a powerful debuff. You do much more damage to them, and they aren't beating on you. It trivializes most fights against just 1 or 2 enemies. Defensive Mindweb: near-invulnerability for your whole group. Suddenly those PotD fights in WM against huge hordes of creatures aren't so scary. Eyestrike. Early game ability. It overlaps with some wizard spells, and is shorter duration, but unlike the wizard spells you can cast it every fight - even multiple times in a single fight. Reaping knives: You can cast this on a fighter type, and have more focus than you know what to do with. Lots of useful debuffs, like Phantom Foes, Secret Horrors, Recall Agony, etc. Unlike priest spells, you can cast them many times between rests. Many have a large effect radius, so you can cover most or all of the battlefield. Pain Block: useful to cast on a tank who's getting beat on for +10 DR and some regen. Not only does the cipher bring a lot of powerful abilities to the table, they help per-rest casters like Wizards, Priests, and Druids go further between rests, since often you can avoid burning a per-rest spell in favor of a Cipher equivalent.

I disagree with the premise. ​​I'm sure there are people who were disappointed. There were what, 700K people who bought the game? Surely some will not like it. Nonetheless, it was very well received. It's currently sitting at 89% on metacritic, and most reviews I've read - either professional or player - have given it around 9/10. Sometimes better. A great many people love the game. ​ ​​ ​ PoE speaks to people who want an updated, somewhat BG2-ish, complex RPG with a rich world that does take itself seriously, with events that matter to the characters in the game. It's not trying for "wacky". This is our niche, and it's been teetering on the brink of extinction for two decades. Please let us have it. There are a million other games out there for people who don't like this style, but we get only a few, and rarely at that. Doubly so for those of us who don't enjoy consolified UIs. ​ In trying to please everyone, it's frightfully easy to please no one at all. PoE is not a perfect game, and it can be improved, but it should not abandon its audience to chase another. ​

The fact that getting punched, stabbed, burned, frozen, shocked, sliced, or clubbed hurts your characters less if they've knocked back a few beers. ​ ​(And people say this game isn't realistic. Bah.) ​ ​

​ You can pretty much distribute your attribute points evenly (12 to every stat, or whatever it turns out to be) and have an effective character - not god-like, but effective - for any difficulty level including PotD. Bias it a few points to what makes intuitive sense (int for casters, con for tanks, etc), or just follow the "recommended stats" when creating the character, and you'll do even better. Again not godlike, but more than adequate. ​ ​To really put a spit-polish on it, sure, you must look deeper. But at least there is something deeper, which not a thing to be said about most modern games which have gone through endless simplification cycles in the quest to recoup their hundred million dollar development budgets. ​May PoE never go there. It's sitting in a sweet spot: enough audience to fund a professional development staff, but not so much that it's compelled to chase the LCD. ​ ​