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I am trying to get into this game, and I wanted to provide feedback as to my experiences and how the game could be made better. Everything goes through iterative improvement, and hopefully I can affect the future of the game. I have briefly read the rules for the actual card game, to stay within those rules. No point in suggesting something that is not in the spirit of the game. The Base Set Rulebook will be referenced by page, so BSR19 is page 19 of the rulebook, used immediately below. 1. I made it through the first two story missions, and was ready to take Kyra and Merisiel out into the wide world and level them up. However, I cannot figure out how to do that, I seem to be forced to start new versions of them. The card game states (BSR19) that characters can be played in the campaign or a random game. Let me play the same party characters in story mode as in quest mode. 2. The card game states that it has enough cards to support four character decks, six if you have the character add-on deck. (again BSR19) With a digital platform, card scarcity is no longer an issue. The nicknames function that exists could use some magnification to a larger font, if nothing else. To be even more clear and concise about characters, make a universal character vault that has whatever characters I have made, with a "new" button on it for new characters, so that I can have the same experience as I would with the card-game, on a digital platform. 3. The subdued, plain, gray, cog-wheel icon has nothing about it to explain that it is the means to exit to the main menu. The standard convention is a red X in the upper left corner of the window. Maybe something in between those two? An easier, more intuitive menu scheme? Back and Next buttons? Swipe up and down? 4. I do not know how this game can deplete my tablet battery, but it most certainly does. Is there any possibility of a menu option to turn on and off the "effects", to make it a bit easier on battery life? 5. If I want to change my cards for the basic ones, then rules a better deck-building menu would be awesome. In fact, I have not figured out how to do that, but I understand that cards can be discarded, but "view deck" does not give me any such option. I would very much like the tutorial to go through this, to explain it as a core function of the game. This could be integrated into the character vault as well, to put it all in one place, using the three dot ellipsis icon and view deck option that already exists! 6. The card game rules state that decks can be built using cards that are in expansions two numbers less than the current one in play, expanding from the basic cards at higher levels. Is this implemented in the game? if not, then please put in the business logic for it, so that we can experiment with builds at later stages of the game. Thanks to everyone for the game, and please read these suggestions in the spirit that they were written - to make the game better. V/R

Is there any in-app way to send feedback or capture strange behaviors, weird situations, unexpected interactions? I've had a few things that may have been Working as Intended but definitely unclear, as well as a few freezes.

The preview rulebook is now available. It's not final and there is still time to clarify any confusing rules and fix any errors. Please post any questions or comments below. http://www.zeroradiusgames.com/downloads/loer_rules_preview_small.pdf Thanks!

Not surprisingly, I thought the ranger was prett lack-luster. Although I don't think the ranger's in danger of winning any overpoweredness contests, I actually didn't think the ranger was too weak. The ranger is really just the pet-owner class. Other than the fact that D&D also had (and struggled with) animal companions, the class barely feels like a ranger at all. This wouldn't be a huge problem if it didn't mean that, in the end, there's almost nothing to do with the ranger in both character building and combat. In my opinion, the ranger would make more sense (and probably be a lot more fun) as a series of talents available to any character. (Think about it: then Sagani could be a rogue!) That's a pretty dire verdict on a class. I'm not joking though. At this point, if I had to fix the ranger I would just get rid of it completely and allow any character to buy into the ranger pet through a series of talents (starting with something weaker, of course, since a whole ranger pet would be a bit OPed for just one talent). The remaining abilities could be divided among other classes as made sense. I'm not being hyperbolically negative here either. I actually think this would be a nice improvement to the game--allowing characters to be distinguished by the fact that they have an animal companion rather than defined by the fact they have an animal companion. The fighter with a pet wolf would feel a lot different than one without, both mechanically and from a storytelling perspective. Same for every other class.

Having just finished PoE, and havign waited for a good Infinity enginge style game for many years I wanted to put down my thoughts on how things went, and my thoughts on the journey. I hope this is of some interest or use to someone. Disclosure: I am a huge Infinity Engine fan. In the interest of providing a full appreciation for what you are getting in to I will break this down in to several sections, if you only want information on a certain area just skip ahead! Story/Plot: Yea: Some difficult choices to be made. Generally a lack of a binary good or evil setup. The world is huge and the lore in depth. Nay: The main story is generic fantasy fair. Revolutionary it is not. Sometimes hard to role-play certain types of character due to the lack of consistent options in conversation. Quests: Yea: Meaningful and substantial, throughout the games. Side quests are plentiful and offer a good reason to explore the world and get the most out of the setting. Nay: The pacing is a little off in places, potentially leading to a lack of drive to finish the story. Characters: Yea: Very developed back stories. A lack of one dimensional characters. Nay: Limited inter-party banter. Party has no bearing on your actual conversations. Bordering on blind followers. Seems like you could slap their Mother with a wet fish and they wouldn't bat an eyelid. Script/Writing: Yea: Phenomenal writing. Voice acting: Yea: Some very impressive voice work, including some fantastic stand outs. Plenty of voiced conversations; there can always be more, but for me there was oodles. Nay: During conversations there are written descriptions to bring the conversation to life. The voice acting does not pause for this, even when it says that the character paused! This can be jarring. Art /Design: Yea: Art and aesthetics are always personal, but I loved it. Nay: Some random, extremely low resolution assets that would have looked old fashioned in the original Infinity games. Infrequent, but they stick out like a sore thumb Impact of decisions: Yea: It was sometimes difficult to tell the result of your actions and sometimes it was obvious as a sword to your enemies gut. You traverse the world and cause waves of action and interest. Nay: Sometimes a little too unclear or obtuse regarding what would happen when making the choice. Combat/AI: Yea: Clever, nuanced classes without thematic considerations. Strong variety of moves. Several options to support style of combat desired (e.g. turn based, slow mode etc). Some challenging combat, with consideration and calculation being necessary. (Though of course a little luck never hurts.) Nay: Classic issues of not auto-attacking and getting caught on allies. It is not obvious what move the hero is using until you actually select them (i.e. no overhead display of move selected for use). Bugs: Yea: Not as many as expected, does that count? Nay: Voice cuts to halfway through sentences sporadically. Voice cut out/became muted. Some events fail to trigger. Steam achievements didn't update for me. Features/Options: Yea: Lots of customisable options, such as hiding meta information (e.g. possible conversation options you lack requirements for). Regular, helpful tooltips. Nay: Tooltips don't always relate to what they pop-up for (seems to be on a keyword search so damage may bring up the "damage" tooltip, though it refers to "mitigating damage"). Some options don't seem to work as intended or implied (e.g. show relative defense values, limit stash). Pets that add almost nothing. Some locked slots on the inventory that never unlock (did I miss something?) Noticeable omissions: When in main team location you have to swap out characters to be able to look at their items. Humour - other than the odd comment (and maybe one particular character) there is very little of the light-heartedness or amusing comments as seen in other Infinity games. Meaningful differences in loot. Each new weapon tends to be a small, numerical difference from the others. The few that seem to have potentially interesting differences are poorly explained. Explanations of the enchanting system. Overall: Loved almost every minute of it. To anyone who enjoyed the Infinity games, anyone who has enjoyed a party based cRPG I would recommend this. I would also recommend it to anyone who has a passing interest in roleplaying, or immersing themselves in a new and fantastic world. Some improvements are definitely available for the developers, but they are not needed to make the game feel whole and substantial. The game is polished and fulfilling and it is only a matter of time before I play it again.

My PC was a Goldpact Paladin. Overall, I found the Paladin decently interesting to build and play. I liked the bonus to defenses from certain reputations. I felt that was a much nicer way to make Paladin's the "roleplay" class ala D&D without hamfisting it (like AD&D does with most things) and still allowing a wide representation of roleplaying Paladins that weren't all Lawful Good. However, I found the Paladin to be pretty boring in combat due to the low number of abilities, with a low number of uses, that were fairly niche as well and no distinguishing combat mechanics (other than a couple auras that overlap with Chanter anyway). By the end of the game, in particular, my PC Paladin had a laundry list of low-use abilities (many of which were per-rest) that I rarely used, and were frequently irrelevant anyway. (Some of that was because I would wear ability-granting equipment just because there was nothing else to wear in that slot, but that's another issue.) Even though I accidentally picked Lay on Hands at the beginning of the game, by the end of the game I was running out of abilities that I wanted to pick. I've read somewhere that the Paladin was supposed to be like a D&D4 Warlord, but giving the Paladin single-target buffs doesn't really play like a Warlord at all--it plays like a Priest. Putting the Warlord into RTwP gameplay would probably be hard, but I think you could do a lot better than PoE. First step would be to make Coordinated Attacks an early, rather than a late, ability, so that the player can build around it. I'd remove the melee limitation of Flames of Devotion, because that bombos with Coordinated Attacks. I'd add an ability that let the Warlord swap places with an ally without triggering Engagement Attacks. Liberating Exhortation works okay for this paradigm, because it's a bit about controlling the battlefield by helping your allies. I'd let nearby allies use Flames of Devotion, Sworn Enemy, and any other attack ability that makes sense. Abilities that trigger on killing enemies are yucky because they are "win more" abilities and they encourage unrealistic and unfun gameplay where you stop attacking an enemy so that the relevant character will get the kill. Instead, I'd give the Warlord an ability that applies a limited duration debuff to defenses when the warlord attacks a full-health enemy. That way the Warlord is leading the charge. But honestly, I'd make the Warlord paradigm a set of talents that anyone can take because, why not let the Fighter or any class be the battlefield coordinator too? To fix Paladins, first of all, I'd give the Paladin all the auras one by one, because they're not significant enough that it feels worth giving up an ability to get another aura that's mutually exclusive with the aura you already have. Second, I'd make Lay on Hands and Reviving Exhortation into Priest spells (because that's what they really are), and then just let the Paladin pick a spell from a list determined by his Order but taken (thematically) from the spell lists of all other classes, and have that spell as a 1-per encounter ability. Let the Paladin do it again at 6th and 11th level, or something. This should allow the player to build the kind of Paladin he or she wants to play while ensuring that the Paladin has abilities that the player actually wants to use. In this concept, the Paladin becomes a knights that draws on supernatural powers to complement his traditional martial abilities instead of pursuing an alternative martial art like the Barbarian or Monk. I felt that the Paladin didn't get enough tanking support in comparison to the Fighter. Some possible ways to improve that might be: Since Paladin's are known for wearing armor, give the Paladin a free small reduction to their armor penalty. I'd give them a Challenge ability that reduces the target's accuracy against other allies. Maybe give the Paladin an aura that slows enemy movement while the Paladin is standing still. Make the Paladin's single-enemy abilities allow the Paladin to engage that enemy for free.

I just finished my first playthrough of Pillars of Eternity (50 hours –did all side quests + endless paths) and I wanted to take the time to give you my feedback. Before I get started, I want to stress that I backed the game the minute I heard about it, I started playing RPGs with the first Fallout back in 1997 and I have enjoyed and played pretty much everything from Obsidian. What follows is not a review of the game but rather the main points on which I wish to give you some feedback. Feel free to comment this post but please note that I do not intend to start a debate but only provide my feedback to the devs. -Visuals: First thing that caught my eye. The game is simply gorgeous to look at. After PoE, I think I’ll find it hard to go back to old IE games, visually speaking. In my opinion, it sets a new standard for isometric 3D games. Kudos to your visuals artist and the art director. Don’t change anything in that department -Exploration: I find this part to be quite disappointing. I think it has to do with the fact that you cannot free roam on the world map. You know that you have a limited number of maps and you go to each one and once you have combed them, it’s over. You just have to move on. I really miss the fact that you cannot wander and chance upon a cave or have some random encounter on the map. As a result, I found the game to feel “boxed in” and not providing the thrill of exploration -Reactivity I was also disappointed by the fact that apart from a few variables in dialogues, you don’t really have that big an influence on the world and the ending of the quests. My biggest disappointment was after the hearing at the duke’s palace. I was really expecting Dyrwood and Defiance Bay to change based on my input during the negotiations but whatever I chose to do, it does not impact the script (if there is another outcome, it’s interesting). In general, I found that different skills did not change the game experience that much. You use force instead of resolve but it’s just a line of text that is different. In Fallout 2 for instance, I liked the way that if you played a doctor or a computer technician, it opened completely new narrative paths adding to the replayability and the sense of discovery. Here if feel that the variations are more cosmetic rather than meaningful. -combat I am not a big fan of real time in the first place so maybe I am biased. I would say that the combat is functional but not very interesting and maybe a bit unbalanced. I struggled a bit up to level 6-8 and after that I just steamrolled my way through the game in normal, only to struggle again at the end (last boss was really tough).When you know what you are doing, it’s always the same pattern of buffs, spells and positioning. Maybe I should have played in “hard” but I suspect it would have made the game just more frustrating rather than challenging. -Narration I was also disappointed by the narration which is usually considered a strong point for Obsidian. Don’t misunderstand: it is still miles better than most games out there or even some concurrent RPGs but I think it’s not in the same league as Kotor 2 , New Vegas or even Alpha Protocol. Everything is well written, although sometimes a bit over-indulgent, but nothing really shines through.I find it hard to name a memorable character or quote a particularly stunning piece of conversation (I can easily do that for Fallout 2 and of course, Planescape and for New Vegas to an extent) The NPC companions share the same problem. They are competent but a bit bland. The big reveal fell a bit flat for me and I never really did feel invested in the story like I did for your other games. -Conservative and predictable I am sorry to say this but I think it’s the cause of my semi-disappointment with the game. Everything is kind of predictable and seen before: secret society, the pantheon of gods, big city with seedy districts and patricians, elves who live in the woods near majestic trees and curse the greed of “white men”. Except for a few quests that I will not spoil, I was never surprised or intrigued by the game or the story. Everything was as it should and safely on a well-treaded path. Apart from new lore, I am sorry to say I did not bring anything new to the table thematically or design wise.In that respect, I found the endless paths to be the most interesting and thrilling part of the game because it combined a lot of things that are otherwise missing: an interesting location, surprising quests and enemies, intriguing narrative. Someone once said that in entertainment it’s dangerous to innovate in all aspects at the same time. I have a feeling you did innovate with Kickstarter and maybe unconsciously played it very safe with the design and writing. In my opinion, PoE is your most conservative and less interesting game with Dungeon Siege 3 To summarize: I thought that PoE is a very beautiful game with very solid roleplay foundations but it’s a shame it’s being very conservative and that nothing very interesting or memorable is happening in its beautiful world. Let’s be clear, I am immensely glad to have backed this and help brought the classic RPG experience back. However, I feel that you have played it very safe and that a lot of untapped potential remains. Do not rest on your laurels because this is one of your weakest offering. I really hope you will up the ante for the next installment because this is clearly not Obsidian at its best (except visually). PS: Most people think that 4M is a lot of money but anyone with some serious business and industry experience knows it’s actually peanuts for a game of this scope and ambition. So my hunch is that you guys had to deliver a tight package on a budget which would explain a lot of the shortcomings I am pointing out, especially regarding scope and reactivity. I hope the success of PoE will take care of that issue.

The story is good, and I enjoyed the way it worked throughout the game. Given that this is the most important aspect of an RPG like this, it made the game overall enjoyable. Combat is also pretty decent except that I was max level near the start of Act III. That turned most of the fights into mindless spanks. There were a few exceptions. The finale of the Endless Paths was hard. And having now finished the game, I was right on when I said I suspected it was the hardest fight in the game. That fight is the only one with a mob who can one-hit-knock-out (OHKO) the entire party, and can do it every couple minutes or so if the fight lasts long enough. I really wish such things weren't in games as there is zero fun to be had when the first time you face a mob, you're entire party gets wiped out in just a few seconds. Given the sheer amount of cheese (but no bugs) that I used to win this fight, I'm not sure anyone at Obsidian really thought to try and balance this fight out. Of course, it was totally optional, but still... I killed all the dragons, and I did all the god quest and unlocked those achievements. Somehow I didn't unlock the visit every map achievement. I have no idea what I missed or if its just a bug. I do know I didn't complete all the quests simply because you can't. You have to pick a faction at Defiance Bay, and the one you pick actually matters to the ending. Speaking of which, like too many games, Pillars of Eternity has the whole pick-an-ending dialogue at the end. There is a huge, massive, so-much-better aspect to how PoE handles this tho. Unlike say Mass Effect 3 where your final choice is the only thing that actually mattered, your choices and actions leading up to this final choice all get added in to the ending. I'd saved my game before thinking I'd just watch a bunch of final cutscenes. After watching the first, I realized that wouldn't work as all kinds of things are tied into things you did as you traveled the world. If you're going to make a game with a pick-an-ending, this is the way to do it. Better yet, come up with an ending that's based entirely on things the player did before s/he gets there so you don't have that moment of deus ex. The game is not without its flaws. I hate that its level based without any way of knowing before you go into the fight whether its something you can handle or not. Sure, I can access my bestiary that is now pretty much filled out, but that's meaningless during the game. All they've done by hiding this information is made save scumming or wiki research mandatory. I also really dislike the rest system. It makes zero sense to have skills that are limited per rest and then have how many times you can rest on an adventure limited by a very artificial feeling consumable and quantity-limited system. Like the hidden mob levels, all this does is promote boring gameplay. In this case, you had to trek back to town to either rest at an inn or buy more camping gear. Then you'd trek back. Nothing fun was added. My last major complaint is that controller-type effects are seriously overpowered. Paralyze scrolls, spells, and like 2/3 of the cipher abilities leave your opponents utterly helpless. And of course, the handful of mobs who can charm your party members or stun them are easily the worst fights in the game. Anyway, I'd give the game a "B" overall. It hits on its most important elements, and the problems in the game can be overcome, albeit with a bit of tedium.

Hello devs/others, I just wanted to offer my feedback on the game. I haven't gotten all the way through yet, I'm only about 55 hours in, and level 9 (the next plot quest in my queue is "Undying Heritage"), but I wanted to leave a lot of my initial impressions type feedback now, while it's still fresh in my mind. I normally don't play games on release (I held out until Witcher 2 EE was released to play it at all, despite loving the first), and I'd been planning on waiting till the expansion to play PoE, but my excitement got the better of me. It's been 2.5 years! I've read every kickstarter update, and been checking the forums and dev tracker religiously since last summer, but I almost never post, cuz I'm a Watcher. I was not in the backer beta, and I jumped into the game on hard/expert, without actually reading the manual too much, thinking a modern game should do a fine job of explaining itself. If it helps qualify my feedback, I'm mostly a powergamer, I've spent hundreds of hours in the IE games, and my top 10 RPGs of all time are: ****************** GENERAL FEEDBACK *********************** For starters, I love the game. I think my pledge was totally worth it, and I'm glad I ponied up for the expansion and some playing cards as well. I think you guys delivered on what you promised, and the game deserves the 93 metacritic it has right now, and a 9.5 from users. Seriously. I want to be very clear about this, because I'm going to say a lot of things shortly that might seem overly nitpicky or critical, but I only say them in the interests of making a Perfect Game in the future, via sequel or expansion. AND because Jorge said you like every bit of feedback, so blame him. I like the music, particularly the main title. I know some people have complained about the combat music, but to be honest I just tried to remember what it sounds like, and I have absolutely no idea. After spending hundreds of hours in BG2 the only music I can remember off the top of my head is from character creation also, so maybe it's just me. The slow mo mode is great The fast speed mode is even better, but I really want a 4x option, not just 2x. It's still tedious walking back and forth across maps. In the IE games I just enabled the cheats and would teleport my party around city maps, to avoid having to watch them walk. I miss party AI a lot The graphics and sound are everything I would ask for. The dyrford area is particularly pretty. I've found a number of technical issues (most of which are minor), which I've reported in the support forum, but in general the game has been very stable for me and run very smoothly. I'm generally pleased with the level of technical polish. I do have a background in software engineering, though, so maybe I'm more understanding/forgiving of these things than your average user. I wish you'd stood strong on the locks and traps xp, and left it in the past where it belongs. The things in the chest are the reward. I actually like the bestiary xp, on the other hand. It's a pleasant reward as I fight things (and there are lots of things to fight on hard, apparently), but it doesn't encourage me to wipe every map clean. Plus it makes sense that I gain xp as I learn about a creature, but once I know all of its secrets the xp flow stops. Good good. I like the idea of the "accurate" fonts in the almanac, and the notes in the margins and stuff, but I have to really concentrate to read that gothic font I know this probably isn't your guys' fault, but it's slightly disappointing my physical copy hasn't shipped yet. Not that it really matters, I don't have the collector's edition and I already have a digital version of the game. ****************** USABILITY/UI *********************** I like the general look of the game HUD (I've only used the solid version). Since I'm playing on hard, I've never seen any of the little creature UI bars or anything like that, but I honestly think they're unnecessary. For me, I have all the information I need just looking at my screen. Which is great! I wish there were hotkeys to quick cast abilities and to switch weapon sets It would be nice if the companion quests had their own category in the quest section, because their names are hard to remember and I keep clicking on them looking to decide which quest to do next. If they don't get their own section, highlight them somehow so they're clearly companion quests I like the inventory, journal, and stronghold UIs The buying/selling UI is awful. I have to click like 100 times to sell up all the xaurip **** I picked up (which is apparently my main source of income for a while). There should be an option to select all [level of quality] items, or move every item of a certain type into the sell box. It's also tedious to scroll through the vendor inventory, and the sort buttons should actually remove items from the list, instead of just greying some of them out. I think not showing spell area indicators on expert mode is a huge mistake. I cannot for the life of me understand why someone would want to play without being able to see the exact AoEs of their abilities. It's not like counterstrike where no-scoping makes you a pro, and not having AoE indicators in the IE games was a failure of UI, not something that should be replicated. This game is about pausing and planning exact movements and strategies. Since I never played with the circles, I had to straight up guess at my abilities when I started playing, and as a result I'm completely unable to carefully place area spells amongst enemies I'm engaged with. All 4 of my friends I mentioned that "feature" to thought it was ridiculous also. the links and tooltips to explain game mechanics are very useful When I first started making my character, the game asked me to choose a race before ever explaining the attribute system. It would be nice if the char creation screen featured the same tooltips that the rest of the game does, because I had skip forward to the attribute allocation, read about all the attributes, and then go back and start again. I could've minimized and dug out the manual, but to be honest I didn't trust its accuracy, because I know lots of things can change in the last month before release The enchanting UI isn't super clear. I initially held off on enchanting things at all until i was level 7 because I didn't know if I could later overwrite or remove enchantments. Actually, I'm still not sure if you can remove them. I know portraits are super time consuming, and it's unrealistic to expect a portrait for every 3d face in the game, but the godlike options are quite limited in terms of portraits, at least for death godlikes. Also a lot of the portraits were a little more... happy? than I'd like. I don't make whimsical characters with bright eyes or wide smiles, I make characters that kill whimsical characters with bright eyes or wide smiles. I felt like some of the more serious portraits were kind of over the top with snarling or making angry faces. I actually almost reconsidered my character archetype because I couldn't find a portrait I liked, and eventually chose a helmet with horns that very vaguely resembled my godlike's head. If it helps, my favorite set of portraits from the IE games was from IWD2, by far. Actually, does anyone know if you can import portraits into the game? I'll just copy those over. I wish the game actually did the dps calculations for me, so I could see EXACTLY how changing armor types is affecting my damage output. ****************** COMBAT/MECHANICS *********************** On the whole, I think the new/updated mechanics are great, I think the design team did an excellent job Engagement is good. Third ed D&D had engagement in the form of of attacks of opportunity, and I think the ability to control areas makes this game far more tactical, not less I think the tactical choices between different spells and damages types is pretty good. I always look for which saving throw type an enemy is weakest against, and cast that sort of spell at it. I don't bother to check enemy, DR values for different physical damage types, but I know that I should. I just don't need to. My initial impression of spell diversity is that it's pretty good, in terms of both effects and damage types, but could definitely stand to be fleshed out a bit. A good starting point, though. Thank god there is no ammo. Dealing with ammo is ****ing tedious, and there's no point to it. Thank god for the stash. Filling every inventory with gems and other **** you're just going to sell so you can pack it out of the dungeon is also tedious. I like how some items automatically go to the stash There seems to be absolutely no incentive whatsoever to diversify skill selection. Seems like every character should put points into one skill, and only one skill, with the possible exception of athletics, because damn that priest getting tired is annoying. As far as I can tell, survival is useless and mechanics is super, super, super important. Stealth is useful for stealing some trinkets, but not really important either. Lore lets me use scrolls, which is moderately useful It's tough for me to tell how useful any of the skills but athletics would actually be in conversation, because expert mode doesn't show me dialog options I can't choose, so maybe some of my perceptions are off I wish I could stack bonuses from items. I understand this is hard to balance, but it also lets me customize my character more heavily The rest supplies limiting... I understand why it was put in, but ultimately it doesn't actually keep me from just going to the inn, getting some more, and heading back down. It makes rest spam more tedious, but doesn't actually remove it. It might be an unsolvable problem, though, aside from just removing the ability to rest in dungeons, which is far more realistic, but maybe a little too punitive. I don't know. I think the resting supplies was maybe the best possible solution, but that still doesn't make it a great one. I really dislike the whole "stealth is scouting" thing, it just makes me creep around the map really slowly so I don't miss anything secret. It's tedious I also don't really like how every combat starts with stealthing the whole party in Characters should be able to stealth invidually I think the general combat and game balance are vastly superior to the IE games, as they should be. I'm going to enclose a ranting digression about why I believe this is so in spoiler tags here, because it's not completely germane ****************** CLASSES/RACES/ATTRIBUTES*********************** I think wizards and rangers are by far the weakest classes, just from my experience with the companions The wizard's spell selection just doesn't seem to be as good as the druid's, at least early on. Seems like the druid not only has a bigger spell selection because he's not grimoire-limited, but he also has great untargeted (returning storm, anyone?), and single target damage options. Druids also have the summon, which is amazing. I couldn't imagine beating the game without a priest, which I think is a problem. I think the buffing and healing should be distributed a bit more amongst the other two heavy caster classes, so you don't HAVE to have a priest. I also think the priest should have a little more offensive capability in terms of spells, but that's just me. Every fight he just casts buffs or heals constantly, unless the fight is easy, in which case he just stands and fires his rifle. Ciphers seem to be amazing. I'm totally going to make a cipher as a second character. Three bouncing mind blades at the start of every fight? My cipher OWNS groups of enemies. Not to mention the damage amp spell (hourglass icon, can't remember the name) is fantastic against boss type enemies. She even hits pretty hard with her attacks, thanks to soul whip. I don't think the value of immediately available, limitless, per-encounter abilities can be overstated. The chanter seems to be sort of a reverse version of the cipher in that he has to wait a long time before casting one ability, then wait a long time again, and it's definitely for the worse. I think the idea of the class is really cool, and the passive, customizable chanting is good, but it absolutely pales in comparison to my aforementioned bouncing blade salvo at the start of every fight. My chanter will get off one, maybe two spells per encounter, and while some of them are really good, it's just not as powerful. I think the speed at which he sings should be sped up, so he can cast real spells sooner into combat (the first 10 seconds of combat usually determine how things will end), and I think his chanted verse effects should persist a bit longer. I think the mage desperately needs more per-encounter abilities. I carried the mage companion until at least level 6, and he was the main reason I had to rest. That, and the stupid priest running out of health constantly. He just doesn't have enough spells on demand to compete with the cipher in terms of damage, particularly since all his damage spells I've found also hurt my party, and he can't sustain damage output. I think the wizard should be able to use one free spell of every level he knows, per encounter. That way he's useful and exciting in easy and moderately difficult fights, without completely blowing his load before things get serious, if you know what I mean. I can't speak to the paladin, barbarian, or rogue, because I've never seen any of them. The latter two look good on paper, though. Haven't read much about the pally yet. The ranger seems to be bad. Which is really unfortunate, because I like playing them. I think the issue with the ranger is they're penalized so heavily when their pet dies, and the pet just dies like crazy. That thing lives to die. My experience with the ranger (who I carried with me for 2-3 wilderness maps worth of encounters) was that any time the pet is engaged in melee, it is dead. You really need to attack the target your pet is attacking, which means if the pet is engaged you can't focus the same target as the rest of the party, and disengagement attacks destroy the pet immediately. Also any creature actually attacking the pet destroys it immediately as well. Then the ranger is useless. I think the pet needs per-level bonuses, if it doesn't get them already, and at least needs its tankability increased greatly. Maybe make it so the pet can't engage targets, or at least not without a talent, but make the damn thing hard to kill. I think it needs to be more like a ranger pet in world of warcraft to be viable. I'm happy with the bowman actually doing all the damage in the background, but since the pet is so important to the ranger abilities, it needs to be able to survive much better. I plan to make a custom party next, and carry a tank of some sort, a fighter or barbarian for damage and secondary tanking, a cipher, priest, druid, and maybe a rogue. All the character creation options are great - the backgrounds, abilities, all the little choices In general I like the attribute system, although I'd rename might to power and dexterity to speed Shouldn't interrupt be based on how much damage I do? Having one's arm chopped off tends to disrupt one's casting, after all. Or maybe it could just be based on weapon type, with a % chance to interrupt on the weapon that's checked on every hit, with an increased chance to interrupt on crits I don't really get perception and resolve. Like, if I make a high perception character, what have I just done? I'm good at interrupting? Is that a thing? Will that make me master of the universe? Might, con, int, and dex are all very clear, I could see basing characters around those stats, but perception and resolve I sort of stared at for a while, wondering if I should put points into them. Seems like those two stats could maybe be combined, and the saving throw bonuses be redistributed a bit so everything's even. I do like how multiple stats influence each saving throw type I also like how every stat is actually useful for every character, and I'm not sure how someone could complain about this. No, an int-only fighter isn't GOOD, but it's not ****ing wretched like it would've been in an IE game, either. Sometimes leveling up does feel a little bit empty, even though it's more exciting than than leveling up in the IE games. I think the game should show me what passive stats I gained on the level up screen. It would also be nice if I got stat points occasionally, just to spice things up. Have you guys played Wizardry 8? Best level ups I've ever had. Lots of stat and skill points to allocate every level, new spells, AND new skills unlocked by maxing out stats. Plus you leveled often, which is exciting too. I also really liked how in that game you'd increase skills by using them, it made every combat important and rewarding, even if you didn't get phat loots. I realize that as an IE successor that sort of thing is maybe a little non grata in these parts, but it was still cool. In general, I like how every class can use every item, weapon, and armor, but I feel like maybe they should be differentiated a little more. Maybe certain classes are better with certain armor types, but there's no reason you can't just wear whatever you want. Even after playing all this time, I still have no idea what the best way to build my chanter or cipher would be, partly because the game doesn't nudge me in any particular direction, and their mechanics aren't so straightforward I can just eyeball the best way to increase their dps. Most notably, I'm not sure if they're better in melee or ranged. ****************** QUESTS/ENCOUNTERS/LOOTS*********************** Unfortunately, I think the game is generally too easy. Or maybe just the optional content is too easy (at least so far). I completed all the wilderness areas around gilded vale, then went to Od Nua before completing raedric's hold (cuz I got the bug), so I was without what I have to think was a large chunk of xp. I had 5 chars in my party: my high might, con, and perception death godlike fighter who wears plate and dual wields swords (I call him "the grim reaper" because I took the bloody slaughter trait, I wanted him to specialize in finishing things off), the fighter companion, wizard companion, chanter companion, and priest companion and delved straight down to level 8 of the mega dungeon. I think I was level 4 or 5 when I started? I didn't go to defiance bay at all. I did have to come up and rest and resupply a few times, of course, but there was no point in the dungeon where I ran into something that made me think "ok, I've hit a wall, time to go elsewhere." Which is what I was expecting. Some of the battles were hard, don't get me wrong, but not so hard I couldn't beat them. I'm sure there was no way I could've beaten the whole thing right then, but I expected it to be harder, like I'd only get through 2-3 levels at that point, particularly without a full party. In light of the above, I think enemy leashing should be removed, at least on hard and super hard, and all the enemies in a room should aggro if any one of them is. Or maybe they're supposed to, and it's bugged? Yeah, I know kiting and abusing the leashing is cheating, but killing the same group of ogres 5 times gets tedious. It's just a shortcut to something I could've accomplished anyway. Pulling is too easy, and since my strategies all revolve around choke points, I usually don't even know there were un-aggroed creatures until I've already killed the first half, and proceed further into the room. I think the hardest area in the game for me by far was the temple in gilded vale. I tried to do it first, before I even had any companions, and then again after I got one, but was unable to beat it until I had 3. Even with three, I had to go do some other things first, because there was one shade fight I just couldn't seem to beat. As a result of my doing a lot of the optional content first (I went straight from Od Nua to Dyrford), the critical path is now very, very easy. I can even just run through the encounters with slow-mo disabled, like in the IE games of old. I like the quests so far. I've done all the optional content up until defiance bay, and a lot of the optional content within, from what I've found. I've done 3 of the plot quests in the city, also. The absence of fetch quests is nice, and organizing things into quests and tasks is great. It's GREAT that there are different solutions to some quests, and a lot of things are not what they initially seem On the whole, I'm a bit disappointed with the loot in the game. The fine/exceptional/superb progression is clear, but kinda boring. There seems to be a huge shortage of boots and belts in the game, and I kinda miss having a separate cloak and necklace slot. The unique items are cool, but I feel like there aren't that many of them, and the abilities they give are largely... soulless? I'm not expecting every weapon to be a Lilarcor, of course, and some of the items are really cool, but there's a lot of +1 to a stat, or +25% frost damage, and the like so far. Things that are good, but I haven't seen anything like a vorpal weapon, or a crom faeyr, or a wave halberd, or a belt of inertial barrier, tansheron's bow, heartseeker, blackrazor, the answerer, psionicist's blade, etc. Things with cool extra effects or abilities. I do really like the items that improve specific class abilities I feel like I have a ton of money, but can't find anything good to buy with it. I've already cleared out the shops in the stronghold, defiance bay (that I've found, and I've been to 4 of the areas), and dyrford village The shops in the stronghold are disappointing, also. They didn't sell much I was interested in; I expected them to have some really high level things. Maybe the really cool loot is waiting for me down the road, but I'd rather have it available now, just really expensive. One of my biggest pet peeves in a game is not giving me the loot I feel like I deserve. For example, I see that this drake in od nua has a room STACKED with gold and treasures, and I go to an awful lot of bother to kill him. I think to myself that I am now in the money, and rub my palms together with glee. Except the giant pile of gold turns out to be what I'd refer to as a "pittance" of coppers when I actually loot it. Somehow, a group of people in another area whose whole thing is that they're slaves, serfs, and the homeless downtrodden are considerably more wealthy than 7 levels of mega dungeon combined. On average I'd say I got maybe one usable item per level? Some of it was pretty good, don't get me wrong, but I felt like I didn't get much out of some of the levels, except the ability to go to the next level. The enchanting system is cool, and I think the crafting system has potential, even though I haven't used it (I'm level 8 now, I think) For the mega dungeon, I kinda wish there were more levels that were purely diplomatic, or at least, not super combat-heavy. It gets to be a bit of a slog wading through darguls room after room. I even wouldn't mind some levels that were just one encounter. One unique, tactically different encounter, maybe bookended with some dialog. I love a good hack and slash as much as the next guy, but I think a little bit more level to level diversity would've been a plus. Or maybe just weaving more of a story from level to level? I really liked finding the pages of the journal from the expedition, it would've been cool to have the journey downward be a little bit more of an exploration about what the endless paths actually are, and who the master is, as well. If I didn't say it already, I do really like how different all the od nua levels feel, in terms of aesthetic and enemy types. Also the giant adra man is still cool ****************** COMPANIONS/PLOT *********************** I like most of the companions (although I've never had the paladin in my party), but I don't think there's a Minsc, Jan, Morte, or Dak'kon in the group. Meaning the companions are good, but I don't think there are any super-memorable standouts, at least for me. The plot is good, but not great, from what I've seen. In BG2, Torment, the kotors, and the Witchers, some of my all-time favorite plots, I felt a lot of personal investment in the story. There are big things happening to my character, that I can identify and/or empathize with, and I want to figure them out, get revenge, whatever. The bastard stole my soul. I'm going to hunt him down, tenaciously, because I hate him. "You... you live *yet*! You possess less than a fraction of your soul, and yet you continue to oppose me?!" I'll oppose you all the way to hell, in fact, you sorry son of a bitch. Give me back my soul. I need it, for doing things with. In Pillars, I know that the hollowing is a Big Bad, but I don't feel that personally connected to it. My character isn't even from the Dyrwood, he's from the White that Wends, where I don't think the Problem exists. Yes, the one guy accidentally made me into a Watcher, but I didn't actually really realize that that was apparently another Big Bad until much later, even after the important convo in Od Nua (which I thought was very well done, by the way). I actually thought it was kind of a good thing. Or at least a mixed thing, like being a Bhaalspawn. Maybe I haven't gotten far enough in, and it picks up, but for me I don't feel quite as drawn into the story as I did in some of those other games. Again, the plot isn't bad by any means, I like the writing and I think the plot is interesting, but some of that might be because of the rich history of the world, and the mystery surrounding the gods, etc. I also like the whole idea of souls being important. I think the world was built very well. I really liked the ranger companion, but I didn't take her because I thought her class wasn't good enough the wizard companion was fine, I didn't get to know him too well before I replaced him the druid companion is sort of irritating, but also funny sometimes. I mostly take him because I think druids are good, not for his personality I like the fighter companion the cipher and priest companions are interesting, I've talked to them and I like their hidden depths (were they the Avellone characters?) I was a huge Kreia fan too, though, and I was always really disappointed I didn't get to find out more about Fall-from-Grace. I think the chanter companion is a bit of a boof, even after doing his class quest (his is the only one I've finished). I've not been super motivated to talk to him for fun a number of the companion interactions have been pretty funny I'm sure some of this is a little unclear or verbose, because it's late and I'm very tired, but hopefully it's helpful to the devs. I guess this turned into kind of a labor or love, but I like this game, and I want to see sequels and expansions that build upon the success established here. I'd be happy to clarify or expound on any points, should it please the court. tldr - I think the content in the game is good, and the systems in the game right now are a great jumping off point to creating more content in the future, either in this game or in sequels/expansions.

I'm going to try to target bugs I haven't seen reported or may need more examples: *Note, attaching my save and other info in the google drive link below, including screen caps if I have them for said issues: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_GtIS7GOnODUUxHNkVab1Vkb28/view?usp=sharing Possible Outworn Buckler issue: The "Herald" effect on the Paladin only shield "Outworn Buckler" seems to be behaving interestingly. a. It affects your entire party exactly like a focus (+5 to all defenses to everyone in a radius which is SWEET but is it intended?) b. The "Herald Focus" also seems to sometimes go on enemies in close proximity which I'm guessing is a bug even if the first part is by design!! I'm not able to reproduce b. on some brief tests, but I did see it happen once. Another example of higher than normal defenses: I know this is known but there seems to be a couple variations of the inflating stats bug so I thought it may be helpful to see more examples. My characters are mostly affected by having higher than normal deflection, will,etc defense stats(which may be related to the shield issue?). Check them out via the save/screen cap of Durance? Zealous focus icon sometimes getting "stuck": There are several occurrences where my Paladin's (Pallegina) Zealous focus icon got "Stuck" on everyone no matter how close/far they were. However, watching their stats it did increase/decrease properly when moving in and out of the radius so this is a minor graphical bug. Note: I have the accuracy one. Pallegina -DR bug or intended?: Speaking of Pallegina, she has a -2 base DR and -3,-2,-2 on pierce, fire, ad ice attacks if you take off all her armor - is this an Avian godlike minus or not intentional, it may be a good idea to put a description of whatever it is in here character sheet? Interesting if it's intended considering Paladins are supposed to be pretty tanky or at least you would think..? Penetrating blast and penetrating shot stack, intended or bug?: Penetrating blast (Wizard class ability) and Penetrating shot (Modal ability) stack , so -10 DR every blast hit which is really nice, maybe a bit too nice? The main range attack gets it's -5 as it should but the blast gets both together for -10DR advantage from what I saw in the combat log. Feedback: Scrolls, Lore req red on mouse over for attack spells: If you hover over a scroll than can only be used in combat it shows the Lore requirement as "RED" like you don't have the lore skill, guessing what it's supposed to mean is you can't use it right now. It's a bit confusing however, it would be better I think for it to show the normal "white lore requirement met" text, and then just have it greyed out as normal on the quickbar slot, makes sense to me I don't think any additional feedback is needed. Rogue backstab "Passive", thoughts on it's usefulness: I have a really hard time getting a backstab off, I've been doing my best to get stealth as high as possible so I'm not sure if at really high levels it's a lot easier, but need that mechanic skill so yeah got to balance it some. With Stealth 7 most things seem to see me before I can get a proper backstab off. It is fun to use the invis ability then backstab/sneak attack in battle but it would be nice if it was a little easier to open with a backstab as a rogue. So basically since the invis ability is only 2 per rest plus having to get close enough in the time given plus it being very hard to use backstab as an opener, it makes it a very rarely used passive. Possible ideas to improve: a. Decrease it's dmg bonus and let it stack with sneak attack to make it a more worthy "passive". b. Make it always work if within the first 2 seconds of battle (like sneak attack does?) but only that one time, or have it on an interval timer? Backstab on first hit, another one passively happening after 10-15 seconds, something like that? c. Make it an active ability instead of a passive (1 per encounter?) I like this idea the best and it would feel very rogue like to "activate" a backstab. If this is considered too damaging, reducing the bonus to maybe 1.75/1.50 would be acceptable in my opinion.

Deleted (premature post)

Dear Obsidian, So here we are. 2012 seems a long time ago, doesn't it? I found out about it while playing Diablo 3 with Gftd1. He mentioned PoE in chat. I logged off and checked it out. I backed it pretty soon afterwards. So, now we're on launch day here's my two pence FWIW. They say no feedback is bad feedback. Which is, of course, utter bollocks. I've watched the first two parts of your video about developing PoE. Even a horrible old bastard like me was moved by your passion. OK, I was only moved a little bit, but for me that's progress. Anyhow, it was great being even a tiny part of the juggernaut that you unleashed by launching your Kickstarter. I don't regret a penny. You've put two fingers up to the naysayers, gate-keepers and legacy publishers and won. Man, that must feel good. It's a buzz seeing the game at the top of the Steam listings. I've been posting here since the first week of Obsidian and at BIS forums before that. Watching the journey has been genuinely brilliant fun. I speak for many when I say this success is richly deserved. The idea that your studio might fold was horrible. Thank your deities of choice it hasn't. So that's enough smoke blown up your arses. You did good. Here's what I think you didn't do so well, take it or leave it. 1. Legacy Stockholm Syndrome - I see this with legacy authors. You shake off the shackles of publishers and stumble, blinking, into the light. Hell, you're free to do what you like. But... the pull of The Old Ways is strong. So you end up with indie freedom but legacy attitudes when it comes to new ways of involving backers and taking risks. For example the launch of the game and decisions around Paradox's preview strategy (some of the streamers, guys, shouldn't have been trusted with Kandy Krush, let alone Pillars). Although I'm personally [fairly] relaxed about the release myself, I dig why some backers are asking why they were treated the same as Joe Soap who just wandered onto Steam. The answer lies in communication. You guys must be so freaking busy, I see where the cracks in the pavement must open up. But it has to be a lesson learnt. There should be no surprises around crap like this. 2. Community Management - You finally did it, and the guy is clearly up to the job. But it was too late. That position should have been filled on Day One. We can only speculate as to the hype, synergies and opportunities that might have come out of it. For long periods of development it seemed like you thought the video updates could make up for a lack of forum presence. I think this was a mistake. Forum-goers are a contrary pain in the arse, this much is true, but somewhere in that muck there might be gold. Your forum-goers are also your missionaries, prepared to travel into dark, unexplored regions of the gaming omniverse to spread light where there was previously only FPS shooters. The more engagement, the further they roam. A CM would have filled that gap and allowed devs to dev. Edit - Bioware is awesome at this. Say what you like about their games (and I do), you can't even begin to knock how their CMs mobilize the Bio-horde. 3. Set out your stall - What is a backer? (ha ha 'What is the nature of a Backer?') A customer? An investor? Some schmuck who put down a chunk of cash for a risky pre-order? I've felt like all three during the KS. This was inevitable given it's your first go at crowd-funding, but in the future maybe you need to lay down some ideas and boundaries beyond legal rubric. Some folks thought of themselves as benevolent pre-orderers and some felt they were clearly share-holders in Obz (ha ha ha). Many felt somewhere in-between. I think you need an honest statement of expectation, a compact with your backers. A guarantee. It should be completely realistic but it should also include some carrots as well as sticks. These aren't massive gripes - the success of the enterprise speaks for itself. I'm still unhappy about some of the decisions around the game mechanics, but I'm big enough and ugly enough to suck that up and play the hell out of this game. But, as a backer and fan, if you want to finesse and build on what you've already achieved, I humbly submit my opinion for your consideration. Best regards, MC

Just started playing and I'm excited. But I'm getting hung up on something little at first, and looking for advice. To start with I see this for dialog. BUT I HEAR the voiceover start reading immediately starts talking and so I hear: ...while I'm trying to read the first part. So then I have to wait until the talking is done and re-read it from the start. I assume it will do this the whole game? I feel like this is going to take me out of the experience. I just wish it paused a little to let me read.

The beta is out, give us your first impressions!

The Paladin is by far the class I've played the most, and since paladins are generally the class I favour the most, it is also the class that I have the most thoughts on. The Paladin class has a number of outstanding issues that I'd like to raise, but first, let's go through what the Paladin gets, level per level. Character creation. At this point, the Paladin gets to choose between Flames of Devotion, a 1-per-encounter Ability that does Weap.Dmg.+100% Burn Dmg. and Lay On Hands, a pitiful 3-uses-per-day HoT (Healing over Time) Ability. The Paladin also gets Faith and Conviction, a passive bonus to all defences that depend upon your Behaviour/Reputation; the Paladin also gets to choose an Order that defines what Behaviour improves or diminishes the bonus from Faith and Conviction, however, what disposition is celebrated or condemned by each Order is not actually explained or expanded upon, which is just all kinds of odd. Finally the Paladin gets +1 Lore and +2 Athletics, which strangely implies that the Paladin is more Athletic than even a Fighter. Skill Points and a Talent. Nothing special, which makes perfect sense and it's alright. All Paladins get to choose between a number of unique Talents, same as any other Class, really. Skill Points and a Class Ability. Apart from the aforementioned Flames of Devotion and Lay On Hands, the Paladin now has three more Abilities to pick from; Zealous Charge, Zealous Focus and Zealous Endurance. All of these are Modal Abilities that can be toggled, with a incredibly short range of 2.5m, acting as Auras, and as of v392, only Zealous Focus is remotely worth considering. Skill Points and a Talent. Nothing to see here, same as everyone else. Move along. Skill Points and a Class Ability! This time, the Paladin adds the following to his list of choices: Inspiring Triumph, a passive Ability that triggers a defensive bonus to all allies within 5m every time the Paladin downs an enemy; Sworn Enemy, a once-per-rest Ability that targets a single enemy and gives the Paladin (and only the Paladin) a damage and accuracy boost until that one enemy dies; and finally, the first "Command"-style Class Ability, called Liberating Exhortation, a once-per-encounter Ability that lets a single ally ignore Hostile Effects for 15 seconds (they will resume afterwards). Skill Points and a Talent! Skill Points and a Class Ability, go figure! Again, the Paladin gets to choose from all the previous Abilities that hasn't already been chosen, and adds Deprive the Unworthy and Reviving Exhortation to the list. Both are "Command"-style Abilities, but for some strange reason, the offensive Deprive the Unworthy does not follow the same pattern of being named as an Exhortation. You'd think they'd at least come up with something analogous, such as Depriving Judgement or something. Anyway, Deprive the Unworthy is a straight-up offensive version of Liberating Exhortation, and it suppresses the Beneficial Effects of a single enemy for 15 seconds. Strangely, the Paladin only gets two-per-rest of Deprive the Unworthy, whereas Liberating Exhortation is once-per-encounter. Reviving Exhortation, also added at this level, is also a once-per-encounter "Command"-style ability that allows the Paladin to revive a fallen ally with a modest amount of Endurance restored, much of which will be taken away from him after 15 seconds. Guess what. Skill Points and a Talent. Booyah. Skill Points and a Class Ability! Another two Abilities are added to the list; Righteous Soul, a underwhelming passive Ability (why are passives even offered up as Class Abilities?) The exact nature of this passive is questionable, because the wording of the Ability is ambiguous at this point, but it supposedly makes you resist all Poisoned, Diseased, Charmed, Dominated, Frightened and Terrified Effects, as well as reducing their duration by 5 seconds. Potentially powerful, but again, why would passives even be offered up as Abilities? Passives are by their nature and definition passive, and even if powerful, definitely not contributing to interesting choices in combat. Second, Reinforcing Exhortation, a twice-per-encounter Ability that increases the Deflection of a single recipient ally for 20 seconds. Another "Command"-style Class Ability. Skill. Points. And. Talent. Skill Points and... Class Ability! This time, only a single Class Ability is added: Hastening Exhortation. This is unsurprisingly another "Command"-style Ability, but this time it's three-per-rest, and it multiplies the attack speed of a single ally by 1.2. Final level. Skill Point and a Talent. Final stop. Everyone get off the rapetrain, it turns out that it's got brakes after all. Now, after going through all that, let's take a look at the available Talents as of v392: Critical Focus; Improves Zealous Focus. Deep Faith; Improves the defensive bonuses of the Order-dependent Faith and Conviction passive. Greater Lay on Hands; increases the healing of Lay on Hands. Intense Flames; Increases the damage of Flames of Devotion. Untroubled Faith (Paladin); negates some of (removes?) the negative effects from Reputation on Faith and Conviction. At the very least, this should be renamed, because it really stands out with that "(Paladin)", since no other Talent is class-marked like that. There are also several Order-dependant Talents, all which affects either Flames of Devotion or Liberating Exhortation (for some damn reason), or triggers on kills: The Black Path, Bleak Walkers; similar to the Inspiring Triumph Class Ability, except it Frightens all nearby enemies whenever the Paladin kills someone. Remember Rakhan Field, Bleak Walkers; nearly identical to the Intense Flames Talent, except it adds 50% Corrosion Damage instead of 50% extra Burn Damage to Flames of Devotion. Inspiring Liberation, Darcozzi Paladini; affects Liberating Exhortation, and gives the target ally a bonus to Accuracy in addition to the normal effects. Fires of Darcozzi Palace, Darcozzi Paladini; affects Flames of Devotion, giving the Paladin a Flame Shield upon using it. Enduring Flames, Goldpact Knights; causes Flames of Devotion to also cause a Burn-dmg DoT equal to 50% of the total damage. Bond of Duty, Goldpact Knights; whenever the Paladin uses Liberating Exhortation, the target ally also gets a large defensive bonus against Charmed, Confused and Dominated. Strange Mercy, Kind Wayfarers; again similar to the Inspiring Triumph Class Ability, except nearby allies gain Endurance every time the Paladin kills someone. The Sword and the Shepherd; Kind Wayfarers; every time the Paladin uses Flames of Devotion, all nearby allies heal a trifling amount of Endurance. Shielding Flames, Shieldbearers of St. Elcga; similar to the Kind Wayfarers ability above, it grants a small deflection bonus to nearby allies every time the Paladin uses Flames of Devotion. Shielding Touch, Shieldbearers of St. Elcga; again, the target ally gains an Accuracy bonus when the Paladin uses Liberating Exhortation. Yawn. Now that I've gone through all of that so that everyone gets a more or less clear picture of what the Paladin has and can get, several thoughts and ideas have occurred to me based on playtesting paladins in v392 BB. In no particular order of importance, here are some issues and potential solutions. Mileage may vary. • First of all, the paladin suffers from a lack of combat options. This is particularly glaring for the first 5 levels, which in the context of Pillars of Eternity is a figurative eternity. The fact is that at the moment, Flames of Devotion doesn't just appear to be a default assumption made by the developers that the Paladin is expected to have (judging by Talent support, more on that later), but it completely obliterates Lay on Hands. So while every (almost?) other class gets either multiple uses per encounter of one ability or another, or gets something that hinges on being deployed tactically, the Paladin gets a once-per-encounter ability that is swiftly blown (because there is often no reason whatsoever to not use Flames of Devotion almost immediately, or even attempt to initiate with it) and is then relegated to autoattack. At level 3, when the Paladin gets to pick a new Class Ability, all that is offered up are auras. Now, likely to inflate the sense of combat options artificially, Auras have been turned into a "Combat Only"-Ability, but it doesn't functionally change the fact that it is completely passive. It is not until level 5 that a Paladin can even think about doing anything in combat that isn't healing 3 times per day, or use flames of devotion once per encounter followed by auto-attack. • Second, the supposed core abilities of the Paladin is seemingly lost in translation. It is my understanding that a few aspects of the Paladin was intended by be part of his core concept, primarily Commands (Exhortations + "Deprive the Unworthy") and Auras. Due to the way ability gain has been modeled, however, it is entirely possible to opt out of these things completely. This isn't necessarily something bad, and it depends largely on what the developers want to do with the class, but it is definitely something that should be discussed. What is the concept of the Paladin, what assumptions are made? This ties into a third point. • Third, the Order-specific Talents are somewhat out of whack. Why is it that the Order-specific Talents all favour either Flames of Devotion or Liberating Exhortation specifically? There are two notable exceptions, The Black Path (Bleak Walkers) and Strange Mercy (Kind Wayfarers), both which gains on-kill bonuses to nearby allies. It is still a very strange, lop-sided favouritism that seems to assume that these two abilities are part of any Paladin's core skillset. The Paladin-specific Talents need to be looked over, and spread out to apply to more or different Abilities. Not a single Order-specific power affects Lay on Hands, for example, even though you'd think that such a thing would fit the Kind Wayfarers like a glove. Even though there only exists two different Paladin abilities that can be taken on creation - Flames of Devotion and Lay on Hands - only one of them is consistently affected by Order-specific talents. This is very odd and jarring. This also goes double for Liberating Exhortation. If Flames of Devotion seems to be a default assumption of the class that can conceivably be missed, it is currently very unlikely that anyone would. Liberating Exhortation, however, enters the scene when there are multiple possible abilities to choose from, and it is entirely possible to build a Paladin completely without picking up Exhortations. • Fourth, the oddity of the 2 Athletics, 1 Lore starting Skills. It is odd that a Fighter would be notably less Athletic than a standard Paladin, but I also think that there is a missed opportunity at play. I would suggest that instead of cementing the starting Skills of the Paladin, make the starting Skills 1 Athletics, 1 Lore, and 1 Order-dependent as such; http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/69902-v392-class-skills-starting-skills/?do=findComment&comment=1553094 • For some concrete suggestions, partly based on personal preference and interpretation: Revamp and look over all the Order-specific Talents, to diversify them based on more open-ended assumptions. It should not be assumed by the entire system that you end up with very specific Abilities, unless these Abilities are specifically granted. There are many Exhortations, why only favour one? There are two starting abilities, why only favour one? Lay on Hands need to be considerably buffed. In earlier versions, healing was stronger than it is now, and it was supposedly nerfed across the board. I do not think it would be inappropriate for Lay on Hands to be a premier healing Ability that blows others out of the water; it is per-rest, and potentially a core ability of the Paladin class as a whole. It should also not be a HoT; it should be instant. The Greater Lay on Hands Talent could add a HoT to the Lay on Hands ability instead. For some reason, there is no "Extra Lay on Hands" or "Extra Flames of Devotion" Talents. This should be rectified, and the former should add two additional uses of Lay on Hands per day, and the latter should add one extra use of Flames of Devotion per encounter. It is not interesting, but it is useful and consistent with what other classes can often get. Make Auras a core part of the Paladin concept; on Level 2 or 3, allow the Paladin to choose one of the three auras independently of other Abilities. Additionally, there should be Talents to support all Auras, not just Zealous Focus, an aura already well-known to currently be the only worthwhile one. Rebalance the auras. Especially Zealous Charge is utterly useless due to the Engagement system's current implementation making movement in combat largely meaningless. Also, auras as "Combat Only"-abilities (if "Combat Only" is to be a thing at all, rubbish as the concept is) is utterly ridiculous, an artificial buffer at the initiation of combat meant to inflate the feeling that the Paladin is doing something worthwhile besides auto-attacking. Stop it. Auras are passive modals that should be on at all times if the Paladin wishes it to be so. Rework the Exhortations (including the oddly-named Deprive the Unworthy); ideally, they should similarly be part of the Paladin's core skillset in some capacity, possibly being granted outside of the regular choices offered to the Paladin. Additionally, they should all either be Per-rest (preferably not) or have a similar Per-encounter use (preferably). Them being so conceptually similar as to share names almost across the board, but mechanically dissimilar feels odd and contrived. Instead of making the core functionality between them different, balance them based on the assumption that their functionality is conceptually similar, such as "2 per encounter", "1 per encounter", or "3 per day". Create the framework for how the concept is meant to work, and balance it based on those assumptions afterward. If all Exhortations would be offered outside of the normal Paladin Ability choices, all of them would ideally be offered up at once, instead of the odd progression that they go through. There is no conceptual reason why Liberating Exhortation should be offered before Reviving Exhortation, and I believe this to be a vestigial holdover from a time when the Exhortations were granted at given levels, rather than as a choice amongst a plethora of different abilities. Righteous Soul is terrible. Complete passives should never be offered up as full-fledged Class Abilities. This feels much more like a high-level Talent than anything else. The Paladin already suffers from combat option(s) starvation, and while flavourful and perhaps powerful, this is a bad choice not from a player perspective, but from a development perspective; it should not be offered like this at all. Inspiring Triumph should be made into a Talent. There are several Paladin-only Talents with the exact same functionality, but with different effects, and this has no business being a Class Ability to begin with. It would be much better served being turned into a Talent. Doubly so not only because of it's relation to how other Paladin-specific Talents already work, but also because of the aforementioned "passives are bad as Class Abilities, especially for Paladins"-issue. That is it for today, and I hope that this doesn't read as an enormous wall of text. I did my best to avoid it, but I'm not sure how successful I was. I hope the relevant developers take the time to read this brick, and any thoughts not just on my thoughts but also on the Paladin class in general would be greatly appreciated. It is not uncommon for large posts to kill their own threads, but I hope people instead see it as cause to discuss the Paladin class and possible perceived issues with it. This is by no means an exhaustive list, and is just some thoughts and notes on my perceptions of the Paladin class and issues I've discovered during play or from subjective analysis.

In BB 333, we added the ability to bind hotkeys to abilities on each character's ability bar. Are they useful? Did you even figure out that this was an option? Your feedback here.

Update by Brandon Adler, Lead Producer Hello, everyone. It has been a little while since our last update to our backers and there have been some important developments (and additional goodies) of which I'd like to make you all aware. Additional Time for Polish and FeedbackThrough your help and feedback, the Pillars of Eternity team has spent the past two years creating a fun, fulfilling experience. An open development has enabled us to interact with our fans and backers in a way we weren't able to in the past, and this has really helped shape Eternity into a game that we all hoped it would become. Plus, with the Backer Beta, we have been able to get excellent feedback from our backers that we are using to shape Eternity into an even better game. We really can't thank you enough. To incorporate as much feedback as possible, polish every nook and cranny of the game, and make sure we don't ship a buggy game, Obsidian has decided to push the game's release into early next year. We are going to use the extra time to make Eternity shine for our backers, and a game that we were proud to call our own and would live up to your expectations. Once again, we want to thank you for making this all possible. With your help we can bring Eternity across the finish line. Speaking of Backer BetaWe are hard at work implementing feedback and bugfixing items in the Backer Beta. One of the major focuses for the team over the past few weeks was adding in additional character progression options and cleaning up UI to make combat a little less chaotic. You can expect everything from additional Talents and Ability selection choices to UI and HUD improvements in our next update. We are also very close to getting the Mac and Linux versions of the Backer Beta to you guys. It may even make it into the next Beta update. In fact, here is one of the Backer Beta requested UI changes - Infinity Engine-style targeting reticles. Physical Replacement for Documentary DVDs and Blu-raysA while back we mentioned that we were going to be removing the documentary DVDs and Blu-rays as physical rewards because we would be unable to include the end of production so the discs could be pressed in time for delivery. The documentary will now only available as a download through the backer portal. To compensate we have created a brand new memo-style notepad for those backers that would have received a physical version of the disc. Here are a couple of pages from the Pillars of Eternity themed notepad. Plea for SurveysEven though we have locked down backer rewards on the portal, we are still able to add in memorial and credit text into the game. If you have memorials or backer credits, and you haven't filled out your survey, please head over to the backer portal and fill them out. Italian LocalizationsMany of our Italian-speaking backers asked for us to include them in the list of languages we were localizing for the game. After speaking with Paradox about the issue it was decided that we would include Italian localizations. For those folks that have access to the Backer Beta, they should see Italian languages options (and corresponding translations) as soon as our next update. BEDLAM! What do you get when you mix turn-based combat, rogue-like inspired features, and giant armored machines? BEDLAM! Check out this new Kickstarter by our friends at Skyshine Games and get into the post-apocalyptic fun. It is inspired by games like Banner Saga, FTL, and XCOM. How can you go wrong?

Through your help and feedback, the Pillars of Eternity team has spent the past two years creating a fun, fulfilling experience. An open development has enabled us to interact with our fans and backers in a way we weren't able to in the past, and this has really helped shape Eternity into a game that we all hoped it would become. Plus, with the Backer Beta, we have been able to get excellent feedback from our backers that we are using to shape Eternity into an even better game. We really can't thank you enough. To incorporate as much feedback as possible, polish every nook and cranny of the game, and make sure we don't ship a buggy game, Obsidian has decided to push the game's release into early next year. We are going to use the extra time to make Eternity shine for our backers, and a game that we were proud to call our own and would live up to your expectations. Once again, we want to thank you for making this all possible. With your help we can bring Eternity across the finish line.

Typed Pillars of Eternity into Google News for the heck of it and found this great preview. These guys liked the beta, and they voice a lot of the same concerns we have. On the lack of combat XP (argue about it here, not in this thread): This debate already has a thread so I'm not going to touch the quote, just wanted to share their view. On pause-and-play vs. turn-based battles: This point deserves some serious debate--arguably more so than the XP thread. Granted, selection circles no longer overlap, but that hardly dilutes the argument. For my part, I agree that turn-based combat would solve the issue. I'd be fine with a well-implemented system, so don't count me among the "purist" backers; fun trumps purity any day. However, realtime-with-pause can work. The missing ingredient is AI scripts. Imagine playing an IE game without any basic scripts whatsoever, and clearing out a mob of baddies. Suddenly the micromanagement involved becomes more akin to the PoE beta. Realtime-witth-pause worked in the IE games because you could delegate no-brainer behavior, such as having your ranged character keep their distance or having a barbarian auto-engage their nearest enemy. Going up against a bunch of goblins requried a lot fewer clicks than tactically taking down a dragon. That's how it should be. Without any sort of scripting, I think I'll be spending more time in pause mode than out of it, and will miss the balanced flow of IE-era battles.

I can't match Sensuki's dedication, but I thought it might be useful to summarize my thoughts on the BB so far. I think I'll leave this build alone for now, despite having skipped some classes, notably the Druid. I'll follow the list of high-priority feedback requested in the announcement. Classes Fighter: With the rogue, probably the most restrictive and role-limited of the classes. I would very much like adjustments and talents to make ranged fighter builds viable. I don't think they'd displace the Ranger, because that class's gameplay revolves around the animal companion. Suggested talents (lifted from other threads): Swords to Crossbows (swaps melee and ranged base accuracy), Knockdown Shot, reuse of some Ranger ranged talents. It would also make possible a highly lore-appropriate "musketeer" build who opens up with a musket, then goes into melee when the mobs close up. Knockdown made it extremely useful to quickly put high-priority targets out of commission for the time it took to disable them with something stronger. Basis is good but needs fleshing out. Feels weak overall compared to most other classes. Rogue: Underwhelming. Perhaps I'm missing something, but the only tactic I discovered was hobble+stab-stab-stab. Just a point damage machine, and not all that great at point damage. Sneak Attack needs to be beefed up to make using it worthwhile. Adding Talents that inflict a larger variety of status effects could help too. Feels weak. Wizard: Predictable. I really liked the possibility to make an armored caster, and thought the increase in casting time balanced out the added protection nicely. I could finally use all those nice cone-shaped spells that were mostly doing nothing for me in the DnD games because it was usually just simpler to use something else. Spell selection is currently a bit lacking in variety though, like someone went through a checklist and put them in. In particular, I would like more spells/talents supporting gish tactics, for example something that gives a medium-duration Accuracy boost (rather than the ultra-short one from the L1 spell). It's solid enough but somewhat lacking in 'flair' as Sensuki puts it. Power level feels about right. Priest: Supremely useful set of buffs, debuffs, and heals making it one of the most strategically useful classes to have around. I thought it suffered a bit from the same as the wizard--it's more "fundamentally useful" than "fun." I also couldn't figure out many alternative ways to play it--it's basically a support machine hanging back casting support spells, occasionally plinking with a ranged weapon. Feels a little overpowered; some of those buffs seem to confer near-invulnerability for fairly long durations. Unfortunately I can't think of any simple ways to remedy this. I like playing frontline support characters, but that's already covered by... Paladin: Liked it a lot. The auras and per-encounter abilities plus decent melee skills strike a really nice balance between high-maintenance and low-maintenance. One of my favorite things in DnD based cRPG's was to build a melee-oriented cleric, throw Battletide, and wade into melee. The paladin feels very similar. Power level feels about right. Barbarian: Liked it even more. Lots of tactical variety here; armor up and take Hold the Line and you've got an excellent, strategically durable tank with serious damage output, or Wild Sprint to take out backrow squishies, then Defiant Resolve when you're about to go down. Everything could use more talents, but all in all IMO the best melee class by far. Power level feels about right, maybe a little underpowered. Cipher: One of my favorite classes although needs nerfing, especially durations and obviously Soul Ignition which lets you cheese through the whole thing. Cool take on the gish. I played this as a disabler/melee combatant: took spells like Puppet Master, that multi-target paralysis thing, and so on, and had a ball. Good job on this one; don't change anything (much) other than dial down the power a bit. Chanter: Another of my favorite classes although the summons are obviously way OP at the moment. Feels genuinely different: a low-maintenance caster is something new and cool. Again, don't change everything other than fixing the obviously broken bits. Power level is over 9000. Ranger: Not my thing, I think, but that's probably just personal preference. Gameplay is unique what with the shared health pool, but frankly it felt a little bit gimmicky, different for the sake of being different. Other than that, the implementation works well enough. Power level is too dependent on the animal companion; with the lion he felt too fragile, with the bear definitely overpowered. Needs tuning. Edit: forgot about this one -- Monk: I liked this more than I'd have expected. Main obstacle to enjoyment was the lack of feedback; you have to watch that Wounds counter like a hawk or risk taking unnecessary damage. Needs very noticeable visual/auditory feedback when the monk gains a Wound. Consequently I didn't play with it all that much. I'll file this under "promising," once the combat is more sorted I'll be able to explore it more. Seemed to have rather few talents to choose from; similar issue as the rogue, only with the monk it was ow-ow-ow-Stunning Blow, ow-ow-ow-Stunning Blow. Power level was about right. Druid: Did not play enough to be able to comment. Maybe in the next build. Overall: There were two concepts I wanted to build, but couldn't: the archer/musketeer (with no animal meat shield), and the wizard-based gish who self-buffs, rushes into melee for great burst damage, and then buggers off magically when the buffs run out. (The rogue's Escape ability would be rad for that, as a spell or otherwise.) Races Due tot he limited impact of ability scores on anything, the racial bonuses felt fairly insignificant; if this isn't changed I'll probably pick a race for aesthetic and role-playing rather than mechanical reasons. The aumaua are cool, as are the fire, moon, and nature godlikes; the death godlike doesn't really appeal to me. Never cared for furries so pass on the orlan. Elves and dwarves are what you'd expect them to be. I do like the ability to pick your culture and your background, and that they're not bound to your race. Again, mechanically no big deal but I hope there's some roleplay mileage to be had from them. Attributes Yeesh, almost said "won't go here again" but hey, once more into the breach. I have a few quibbles with them, PER in particular is too easy to dump, but my main beef is that they don't matter all that much. I've kind of gotten used to this already, but yes, I would like it to bite if I dumped something to 3 and feel the punch if I pumped it to 18. I also think that it would be aesthetically better to represent below-average adjustments as penalties and above-average as bonuses, rather than just add everything to a base, even if the numbers ended up in the same place. Equipment Overall, I liked the gear selection, especially the armor. I'd say the design objective of not having one objectively 'best' choice is close to being met here, although I suspect that if I wanted to minmax I'd just go with robes or clothes for the back row, with more variety in the front row. Edit: I have to add, I really like the way the armor looks, and the way they take on the color. Brigandine, padded, leather, and breastplate were especially nice. I even made BB Wizard wear padded armor just because I liked the looks. If you've managed to make armor look so neat I'll take a 20% casting time penalty for it, you've got to be doing something right. Firearms and arbalests felt overpowered, hunting bows underpowered, and I couldn't get a good handle on damage type vs. enemy. I figured out that you're supposed to crush bugs, but that was more by trial and error than by something I could more or less easily understand by looking at the system. So that part could use more transparency. Also if damage type/defense matters as much as it appears, I think it would be important to have more weapon slots from the start. The ability to switch between ranged and melee isn't enough if you also have to switch between crushing and slashing, for example. Some of the hidden powerful weapons felt appropriately punchy; I really dug the way it changed things when I found and started using them. Crafting and Enchanting Glanced at it, did not try due to all the inventory bugs. Maybe next build. Conversations and Quests Oh yes baby: The best part of the beta by far. Won't rhapsodize about the specifics here, just keep doing what you're doing. A+ Combat Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play? Actually it's not bad. There is a good combat system underneath the bugs and overall lack of feedback, but it desperately needs digging out. Please, please, please take Sensuki's suggestion #008 to heart and add the combat feedback it deserves. As it is, it's desperately difficult to figure out what's going on, even apart from the bugs. Movement speed is too fast. Basic mechanics are, as far as I can tell, fun, varied, and interesting. Nothing wrong with miss/graze/hit/crit. Relationship between damage and DT was too murky; it really needs clarification e.g. in the weapon descriptions and combat feedback -- I need to be able to clearly see that my attacks aren't doing damage due to DT; as it is it's quite unclear why I'm doing little to n odamage. Relationship between stamina and health is crystal, except for the petrifying spiders thing. I thought that was bugged. If there's an effect that makes damage go straight from health, that needs to be made extremely clear. User Interface Character creation was fine. The main game HUD was... not perfect; again Sensuki has that part covered, although I kind of liked it that the character abilities popped up above the portrait. The combat log is a mess and in the wrong place; it needs filtering and more info displayed directly to be useful at all. Inventory, character sheet, and journal were fine except for the bugs. One consistent issue I noticed was a general dearth of "Accept/Cancel" buttons in dialogs; it's counterintuitive to accept choices by closing the dialog from the [x] and then going through a dialog. I'll probably return to this when going through builds with the most egregious bugs removed.

Hello all, Only played a little bit of the new build, but from what I've seen it's vastly improved. Gives me a good deal of hope that they've made this much progress in 2 weeks. Combat and combat feedback have been improved... but something really has to be done about that log. Show less (especially regen), smaller font, better color coding, I dunno. But something really has to be done. It's far too chaotic at the moment to be useful. That's all. It's not really a bug, just an improvement that needs to be made.

It's one of those things that's not really a big deal, but one expects a double-click to select an item and perform the default action on it. This is true of Windows list boxes for example. So it seemed a little weird that when I went to load a game I couldn't just double-click the game to load it. PS Beta is awesome.

Maybe I'm blind, but after picking a few plants, I can't find them anywhere in my inventory. Bug, or am I not on the right screen? If it's the latter, the UI might need to be clarified a bit...i tried clicking the various filters in my inventory, cleared all filters...no shrubbewy.

I'm excited to cast spells in PoE, but it took me a moment to figure out the Spell Grimiore. The UI could be maybe a bit more intuitive. Some observations about this screen: Clicking the spell-tier buttons on the right page affects what's displayed on the left page. I expected these buttons to affect what appeared to the right of them on the same (right) page. The top of the left page simply says "known spells", and I didn't even notice the "1st level" or "2nd level" specifier on the bottom. Users aren't trained to look for titles/descriptions in the bottom pane. UI text on right page, "In Grimoire" didn't make sense to me...I'm already in the grimoire.This screen might be more intuitive if the spell tiers/options were shown outside of the book, and by selecting a spell you move it into the corresponding level page in your book. Or, rename "In Grimoire" to "Ready", "Memorized", something like that. Better yet, have the grimoire represent the caster's known spells. Have page forward/back buttons to move among levels, rather than the un-book-like buttons currently on the right-hand page. Selecting a spell would move it into a separate "ready" or memorized" list, a la Baldur's Gate. Right-clicking a spell to get details made sense in the limited-resolution days of Baldur's Gate, but it feels too static here. Mousing over a spell in the spell pool should be enough to yield a description of the spell. This is less important but I was a bit frustrated trying to get descriptions--a non-Infinity-Engine-veteran might get discouraged when clicking a choice (un)memorizies it rather than yield information. (This can be remedied by making the UI flow more intuitive as suggested above). Thanks for reading, hope this feedback makes sense!

I read in an interview that one of the least appreciated feature in Arcanum was the newspaper which chronicled the PC's actions. I would love if this feature would be available in Project Eternity. My own experience with this was via the Big Dog's radio station in Fallout 3. Hearing news over the radio about the implications of your actions was just great! Depending on the world that Obsidian crafts, this feature could implemented in various ways: 1. Reading about it in current tomes etc. 2. Hearing your feats whilst chatting up the Innkeeper 3. Hearing minstrels sing about your feats in particular major questlines. What do you think? Is Tim Cain right in that no one even reads the newspapers or would you love to see it implemented in Project Eternity? I know a lot of people think he's wrong, but action speaks louder... so speak out if you appreciated this feature in Arcanum and want it in Project Eternity.