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Now that Avowed is coming and being set in Eora, perhaps time is to start thinking about Pillars of Eternity as a franchise (you should add the Pillars of Eternity title to the Avowed logo btw, seems silly not to use the new product to also market the old ones), and the opportunity it offers for revisiting Tyranny. Tyranny was a failure as a game in many ways, the setting was unique and infinitely more inspired and inspiring than what PoE was at the time, the theme of power is interesting and fundamentally tied to the whole roleplaying genre, the art and music were simply phenomenal in creating the atmosphere and I could sing praises to the game all day long, but there is a big but. Tyranny also shot itself in the foot by simple bad game design decisions when it came to character progression and a lack of commitment to make it a proper full game and tell the whole story. In the end it felt like the story skipped most of the steps it needed to take in order to rush you into heights of power and didn't really cash in on the whole theme of the setting where you are a PAWN of the evil overlord, instead turning it into the boring "you are the chosen one" narration, which left the character's gain in power feeling utterly undeserved. Now that being said, there are MANY people who tasted what was good in Tyranny and were left hungry for more, myself included. Tyranny being owned by Paradox seems to be the end of hope for those of us who want to see more of Tyranny, but I think it is more of an opportunity to re-invent the game and the setting. A very similar game with the themes and style of Tyranny with a new story could be made for the Pillars of Eternity universe, set in the late Bronze Age era of Eora, in a time where the gods were not yet gods. Tell the story of how the gods became gods and create a spiritual successor for Tyranny all the while strengthening the existing Pillars of Eternity franchise. I really believe Obsidian should commit to this universe, making it richer with each game they make. There's absolutely no point in inventing new universes when you can draw from a rich existing one and keep enriching it with every story being told. Tyranny I think could be revisited in this manner, but this time without rushing the story and using proper game mechanics instead of a bastardized version of Skyrim that simply created a horrible unbalanced mess where you first had to plan the timing of your level ups to maximize training opportunities and where you could exploit xp mechanics by simply taking damage and healing yourself to become an unstoppable monster very early on in the game. This was later changed in a patch that tried to fix things but didn't really improve them, as you now had the most unintuitive system where you had to switch leveling skills on and off to essentially kill the whole point of having this kind of system in the first place, all the while now having to contend with level-scaling enemies which makes leveling up a completely pointless endeavor. There are countless ideas that could be pursued with this to also turn it into a universe of its own. For example, maybe Adra didn't exist yet in this time period and magic worked differently enough to have a different set of character classes, so it would also be an opportunity to explore new ideas while still strengthening the 'parent' universe. Maybe the gods didn't exist yet, or perhaps they weren't gods yet, rather something between a man and a god. Not rushing the story into heights of epicness and power would allow starting the story slow and telling it in parts; testing the waters with a first game that would progress between power levels equivalent to 1-10 in D&D, and if the sales justify a sequel, have the story continue for 11-20 and then perhaps 21-30 in a third game. I'm sure I don't really have to go into detail about the failings and successes of Tyranny, I'm sure they've been thoroughly analyzed by multiple people already, the essence of what I'm trying to say is simply that I think Pillars of Eternity as a universe offers a potential for a spiritual successor for that failed legend, and I absolutely think that the idea of that game deserves to be revisited, and the game could be a success if made properly and avoiding the pitfalls that caused the problems plaguing the original Tyranny. I really loved what Tyranny tried to do but I couldn't in good conscience recommend that game to anyone. I'd really love to see the idea resurrected in a form that I can honestly recommend to my friends and talk about without feeling the pain of witnessing so much wasted potential.

Hi there, Bought both games on their respective launches but ended up not having time to play them (well, steam says I have 12 hrs on PoE1) but now I have some time on my hands and plan to play both of them porting the save. I'll do a run of Kingmaker after that if time allows. Now, the games are not current anymore and even though I've read till my eyes burn, most of the builds are heavily outdated, at least for what I want to play, Back in the day when I first played, blunderbuss ciphers were all the rage. So I'd like to ask for some help with a more or less detailed build and recommended party for what I want. I plan on playing on normal with story companions. I'm not a competitive player, don't want it super easy but don't want to bang my head on the wall just for beating the game on hard or PoTD. I want to enjoy the story. I want to play a Dual Wield Melee Cipher, because it's the unique class to this game and the most similar to a Battlecaster. I have always liked the idea of casting magic while slashing with a sword. Since I also like dual wielding and in this game there's no need to have an empty hand to cast like Geralt (or Magus on Kingmaker).... I'm not about minmaxing so, as long as I don't die terribly on each fight during all the game I prefer to have fun and roleplay my character instead of searching for the most OP Can this be done? Can you help me please? Thanks!

I just got the game and am really looking forward to checking it out but due to never playing the first one I'm going to be picking a pre made history, is there any way to see what choices make up each preset background? I've been looking all over the forums on here, steam, and reddit and can't seem to find a definitive list of each of the choices for each background. Can anyone help me out with this or point me in the right direction?

Hello, I'm a big fan and rly thank you for your job - a lot of hours of fun with both chapters (but first is best). I love to spend time with friends and gaming is part of it, they also prefer rpg games like TES, Fallout, NVR etc. so I want to buy PoE II as a gift for them (three of them) and it cost a lot for me. So, it is possible and IF!? Then when PoE will be cheaper? Thank you

Hiho! I'm Jahz and I'm new to this forum and PoE. I have to start with - "Sorry for my english", couse it can suck at times. Okay, now before I post my question I need to give you guys some background: I haven't played a lot of old-style cRPG games. Only a few quite a long time ago already and tbh I never was a smart man, more of a straighforward one so I need some help from you guys. By not being smart I mean - I suck at micromanagement of my characters and figuring out good tacticks to use, so I'm probably going for normal difficulty and I'm not realy looking for MIN/MAXing my character, I prefer a little more balanced one. Mainly I have problem with deciding which class to start playing with, which race would be best for it and some build examples or tips for building my beloved avatar. Let's start with my playstyle: I love playing a melee characters, with some mix of magic added to them and optional ranged in some situations. As for weapons I go mostly for 2handed swords and scythes (which are not included in this game if I'm right ). I also have an affinity for animals and nature. As for the last part I prefer being a DPS class with some light/medium armor options. Mostly light one probably. So now we can easily limit our class choices to: - cipher - becouse it would be best fit for melee/magic style I think - ranger - has a combat pet, duuuh~ xD - druid - with this one I would be leaning more towards some kind of shapeshifter focused build. - if there is a class I missed out by accident then please add it in your post too! And now - could you guys tell me, which one would be best for a beginner and my playstyle? How to build my character up? Which skills to take, talents, attributes etc? Should I micromanage my NPC companions too? Or is their auto level system pretty good? Which race would be a best pick for those classes (I was mostly looking at the Orlan, Godlike or Elf race)? I hope you all can push me in the right direction to make that first run of mine a great experience!

Back when Pillars of Eternity was released on GOG.com there were no upgrade paths to higher tier edition - unlike on Steam. However, we have been promised this: Source: https://www.gog.com/news/release_pillars_of_eternity Well, no such thing was ever introduced. Now there's the new Definitive Edition which includes all extras of the Royal Edition. As I'm a big fan of Obsidian's work and I'm one of those customers who bought one of the lesser editions of the game I would have loved to upgrade to the Royal Edition at some point but we never got those upgrade options. I'm very disappointed that this situation hasn't changed with the new Definitive Edition. Again GOG users cannot upgrade to a better version of the game without buying a full version of the game again. It's pissing some people off over at GOG and I think rightfully so. Obsidian, can you get in touch with GOG staff and work something out? This situation creates more frustration than it should be. Edit: I'm not the only one who feels this way, just take a look at the PoE DE release thread at GOG.com: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/release_pillars_of_eternity_definitive_edition_63164/page1

Dear Obsidian and other forum users, Some people requested I would let you know how Pillars of Eternity plays on console because you wondered how well it would translate to our tv's. I can assure you that this game is an absolute succes. Professional reviews have been raving and all the people I spoke to are really satisfied with how the game feels. I am a ps4 user myself and I wish to extend my gratitude and respect on a job well done porting this game so extremely well to a platform so vastly different from what it was originally designed for. I am very happy to know there is a company out there that takes porting as serious as Obsidian and Paradox did, to the great enjoyment of your new fans. I am not alone when I say we, the PS4 users, hope this is just the start of a wider array of Obsidian games coming to consoles. With utmost respect for a job well done, A happy customer.

Josh Sawyer has posted a few images about the new (optional) custom AI system on Twitter. I think it looks good and will look forward to tinkering with it.

Since I have started this game I have grown to love it, I like the story and the world, although I think I will have to abandon my 30 hour playthrough(so far) as once I have learnt how to use Durance properly, tuning up difficulty to Hard from Normal(which I felt was ok during first 3-4 levels) wasn't enough, im literally swooping through everything with my level 8 party, even the bounties, although the fights were quite lengthy, I didn't really feel any of my chars were endangered at any point. Much as I enjoy story which I mentioned, lack of any opposition during fights is kinda disappointing, I could theoretically rush towards the end but I am kind of completionist and I haven't touched expansions yet. Therefore I felt like playing on PotD level difficulty with an Expert Mode on to spice things up. As much as I like turning off range indicators and all these things, I have an issue with extreme amounts of crappy loot that clogs up on roads forever if you do not pick it. Because items like weapons or shields do not stack up into a pile and because of roleplaying reasons(I mean, that poor Tuatanu can't be really that desperate to buy another dozen of xaurip spears, neither I can imagine even a party of 6 barbarians carrying around these 20 platemails), I have often omitted them later on, since they barely were worth any gold. However, even though bodies of my opponents disapperared, all that stuff is left there, gleaming and glittering as if it were worth anything, teasing you. It doesn't even require you to click highlight button, it glows brighter than a sun. My question is if there is any custom made fix, for either way fixing that gleam or making "regular" items disappear after being left unattended on the ground for some time?(say, day or two, looters would do their job by that time eh?)

Hey, When I was preordering, I was under the impression we had the option to at least force disable the FoW via the console command 'NoFog'. But that's not even a viable option, because it doesn't store the console value with the other settings in the registry. It defaults back to a (bugged) version of the Fog every time you: load your save, enter/exit buldings, enter/exit too or from areas, etc. Basically anytime you do anything requiring a map load. So it's quite useless. I would love some Fog of War specific options. I mean, to enable, or disable it properly, without uncovering the whole area map before it's discovered. Or even to adjust the start radius of the fog, so it begins outside of your screenspace view. Or, even only use Fog on areas that have not been discovered yet?. I'm not trying to cheat, I just want to be able to admire the nice scenery. Apparently, being able to see more than a couple of metres is cheating, yet fast mode 24/7 is not?. Any help is appreciated, thank you/

Game is fine until the very first sequence for the Gilded Vale loads (where caravan is standing around campfire). When the first NPC in this sequence takes a step, game crashes to desktop w/ no error. Fresh install of PoE w/ no mods Graphics drivers up to date Windows 7 64-bit w/ 16 gigs of ram Please advise, =Khalysto=

Dear obsidian support, I don't know if you are aware of this issue but many users have problems with non-performance related constant stuttering in game. I have a strong rig (i7-4790K, GTX980, 16GB RAM) but I experience framedrops to 6FPS every couple of seconds - even the game is paused! I observed that the time interval between spikes depends on actual refresh rate. For example if I turn off v-sync the game is running at 150FPS and I have 160ms spikes every 5 second (look at the attachment). If I turn on v-sync the game is running 75FPS and those spikes are there every 20s. Capped at 30FPS the time between spikes is around 50 seconds. This is very strange and I would like if someone from developers can look at this issue as it completely ruin the game experience. Otherwise the game runs pretty smooth but this is not acceptable and very annoying. Don't hesitate to contact me if you need further assistance. Thanks!

I've been experimenting with a few different command line arguements, and I was wondering: The game apparently supports DirectX 11, seeing as it can be ran via D3D11 with the -force-d3d11 command line arg, I've also confirmed it with API checks and the PoE output log. My question is: If the game supports running via D3D11, why wasn't it 'officially supported', and such?. Obviously either the engine is cross compiling, or the game has a DirectX11 code path, as it runs with DXGI in D3D11, so I failed to see why it's locked "officially" at D3D9. Two screens below, of both d3d9, and 11. If you open them both and view properly, you'll notice the directx 11 one is slightly darker - I suspect due to shader discrepancies. #Edit: Forgot to mention - I'm just curious, is all. DirectX 9.0c DirectX 11

Hello, Sorry for the newbee question, but does the GOG version of PoE auto-update or will I need to fetch the patch each time it comes out? Regards, Mark

upon finding out a few things i have become kinda confused about some of the choices they have made with poe. no ambient sounds or movie sounds sliders on release and wont be able to drop itemes on the ground??? I mean this is standerd stuff Wastland 2 you have all of this. whats really weird is theirs a space in the sound opens menu like they wher planing on it but cutt it out? sutch a huge shame How about you guys think poe NEEDS sliders and droping itemes on the ground? or is it crazy talk?

My other PoE. (Or as I like to call it, Path of Exile: Forsaken Masturbators. For if you are in sexile, you are by definition a forsaken...never mind.) Currently playing a Reave tank Ranger with 75% block, 40% dodge, and just over 50% Evade (need much more!), She is impossible to hit in melee but high spell damage just wipes her out. Can't get enough of the new crafting masters--mods rule! A great way to fill in the gaps left by random drops. Finally unlocked the map artisan! I prefer PoE to Diablo 3, but to be fair I haven't tried the expansion + patch for D3. As long as D3 remains "freespec" without any sense of permanence, it will always look like the shallower game to me. PS - I bought a bear pet. It lives in my hideout and my wife loves it. They need more "cute" pets.

This poll and thread is a 're-launch' attempt of another thread (@ http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/65236-co-operate-with-torment-ton-in-allowing-shared-art-assets/ ), with clearer languaging around the (now multiple) poll questions. The really key thing that would make this happen (or not!) in any form is dev interest, of course, and that is what these threads/posts will hopefully stimulate. For myself, Q1: Yes - of course. :D Q2: Only if the devs feel like it. Not attached either way. Q3: As Q2. Cheers!